


When It Rains

by AirgiodSLV



Series: When It Rains [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-02
Updated: 2005-11-02
Packaged: 2019-07-10 12:47:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15949664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: It’s been raining in London for six days, and no one knows why. Rather, theyknowwhy, they just can’t figure outhow, and more importantly, how to make it stop.Draco always pulls the worst assignments.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](https://goblins-library.livejournal.com/profile)[goblins_library](https://goblins-library.livejournal.com/) crossover challenge, for [](https://cupiscent.livejournal.com/profile)[cupiscent](https://cupiscent.livejournal.com/) who inspired me, and for [](https://zarah5.livejournal.com/profile)[zarah5](https://zarah5.livejournal.com/), who wouldn't back down. Thanks to Brenna and Dee for the spectacular beta jobs.

It’s been raining in London for six days, and no one knows why. Rather, they _know_ why, they just can’t figure out _how_ , and more importantly, how to make it stop.

Draco always pulls the worst assignments.

He’d blame the Ministry – but really, they’re understaffed and insufficiently trained, and Draco is, without being egotistical, one of the best there is at dealing with magical anomalies. He knows when something isn’t right, he knows when that something involves Dark Magic, and nine times out of ten he knows how to solve the problem. And when he can’t, he can at least figure it out in a relatively short amount of time.

Unfortunately for his reputation, this particular problem has him baffled.

It’s a node – a repository for magic – and it’s been artificially created, because there certainly wasn’t a node here before. Who created it and why remains to be seen, but the top priority is shutting the thing down. The node’s existence breaks several of the rules for the Governance of Magical Energies, and it’s also wreaking bloody havoc with the weather. It’s not just the Wizarding district, either. The magic-blind Muggle forecasters don’t know what to make of it, but for once their forecasts are spot-on.

Rain. Followed by more rain. Ad infinitum.

Draco’s been assigned to tracking the thing down, with two others working on finding the witch or wizard responsible. If Draco finds it first, he’ll start working on untangling the magical knot. But it would be helpful if the other agents gave him something to work with, preferably the cooperation of the person who created the node; because they will either be able to take it down on their own, or give him a starting place and some knowledge of what, exactly, he’s dealing with.

The first part of his detective work is also, without a doubt, the most tedious. He’s narrowed it down to a district, the center of the storm, and is now in the process of trying to locate the focal point. Street by street, alley by alley. There’s nothing here he can pin down, and the magic bleeding from the node is only making his job more difficult. It’s like a flooding pond, with tendrils of magic creeping out like rivulets to turn the surrounding area into a marsh. London is literally _swamped_ in magic, and it’s giving Draco a headache.

He’s not sure what causes him to duck into the Muggle music store, because he can’t sense anything overtly magical about the place beyond a faint increase in the ever-present tingling between his shoulder blades, but he’s never questioned his instincts. Besides, it gets him out of the sodding rain for a few minutes, and he’s grateful for the respite. Even protected by an _Impervius_ , being rained on all day isn’t particularly conducive to a light mood and pleasant working conditions.

The store sign reads _Simian Records_ in cracked letters, slightly washed out by the rain. There’s only one other customer, browsing through rows and rows of cardboard cases, and a young man behind the counter who looks over when Draco enters and gives him a little wave. Draco considers the shop, considers what little he knows about Muggle music, and makes his way towards the counter.

“Lovely weather you’re having,” he drawls, and sees the shop employee’s face break into a crooked smile of understanding.

“Have you just arrived? It’s been this way for a week, and the weathermen haven’t said when it’s expected to let up. I don’t think they even know.” His voice is flat, an American accent, but there’s an underlying sarcastic edge to his tone that Draco appreciates. He looks too young to be working here, sixteen or seventeen at the most, but maybe his father owns the shop. Draco takes a moment to consider the tingling, and the probable proximity of the node, and then takes the opening he’s been given.

“Draco Malfoy,” he offers, giving the man a brief nod. “And yes, I have just arrived, in fact. This morning. I don’t know yet how long I’ll be in London.”

His introduction earns a low whistle and an appraising look. “Rough time for a vacation, bad luck. I’m Elijah, by the way.” He holds out his hand, and Draco grimaces inwardly but accepts the handshake, knowing it’s best to be courteous if he wants information.

“Draco?” Elijah continues, cocking his head with an expression that Draco is inclined to label skepticism. “The dragon?”

Draco fights down the prompt surge of annoyance that his name means _nothing_ here, and is in fact only recognizable when translated into another language, but that lets him know for certain that this isn’t a wizard’s shop. There’s no wizard alive who wouldn’t immediately recognize his surname, not after the war. Simian is exactly what it appears to be, a record shop run by Muggles, and he’s no closer to the node than he was a few minutes ago.

“Yes,” he says finally, voice perfectly even and not betraying his irritation. “That’s the English word.”

“Cool name,” Elijah returns without batting an eyelash, and something about his bland expression tips Draco off to the fact that Elijah’s picked up on his mood somehow, and is intentionally dropping the subject. “Welcome to Simian. Is there anything in particular I can help you find?”

Draco pauses. He’s only heard of one or two Muggle musical groups, and he’s fairly certain that ‘Britney Spears’ is not an appropriate response. He can’t remember the other band’s name, it was some sort of insect, but he thinks they might all be dead now anyway. “Have you been here long?” he asks instead, stalling for time and memory. “I don’t remember seeing this shop before.”

“Opened two years ago,” Elijah tells him, pride evident in his voice. “Business has been great, too. I’ve never had any trouble. Until this rain, that is, but even that hasn’t put much of a damper on sales. People are going stir-crazy, they come in to buy new tunes whenever they’re in the area. Or they just duck in to get out of the rain – ” like you, his eyes say “ – and end up buying something. It’s actually probably been a blessing in disguise.”

Draco puzzles over the beginning of that, and carefully phrases his next question. “You’re the owner?” Surely not. He’s too young even to be out of school. But perhaps Americans grow up entrepreneurs; it is a capitalist country.

“Yeah. This has been the dream, for years. I finally got enough money to make a down payment on the location.” Elijah must have seen the skepticism in Draco’s eyes, because his lips curl into another little smile. “I’m twenty-four. Older than I look, I know. Still young to own a shop, but hey. If you’ve got the money and the expertise, why not?”

“You’re a M – ” _shite_ “ – music expert?” He clears his expression into something more pleasant and watches Elijah attentively, hoping to steer the conversation clear of dangerous areas, like names of bands and foreign words. If he’s not careful, he’s going to trip himself up eventually. It’s a good thing he’s been practicing his memory charms, because he has the feeling that around this kid, even the slightest behaviour quirk will be filed and catalogued. Those eyes don’t appear to miss much.

Not a kid. Twenty-four, right. Only a year younger than Draco, although Draco would argue that having lived through a war and the Purge would make him decades older in experience than this Muggle.

Elijah’s eyes light up, his enthusiasm obvious, although his expression doesn’t change all that much. “Music lover, at any rate,” he confesses, twirling a writing stick – _pen_ – on the counter in front of him as he speaks. “I wouldn’t say I’m an expert. Just an enthusiast, and a collector. Are you looking for any specific albums? I’d be happy to help you find them.”

He looks at Draco expectantly, and Draco realizes with dismay that they’re back here again. “Something to do with a colour,” he hedges, improvising with a careless wave. “A friend recommended them, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten the name.”

Elijah purses his lips, thinking, and Draco lets out a silent breath of relief. “Black Rebel Motorcycle Club?” he asks, and when Draco shows no recognition, tries again. “The White Stripes?”

“That’s it,” Draco agrees hastily. “White Stripes. Thank you.”

Elijah looks amused, and Draco wonders if the White Stripes are some incredibly popular band and he’s just outed himself as musically ignorant. Perhaps not, though, because Elijah doesn’t look shocked, more like tolerant. Underground classic then, possibly.

“I can also give you a list of similar bands, if you’d like,” Elijah suggests. “I don’t know what’s to your taste.”

Draco doesn’t know, either, but he can’t exactly admit that. “That won’t be necessary,” he replies smoothly, and then freezes because he realizes he’s practically locked himself into making a purchase, and this store probably doesn’t accept Galleons. A bit of Transfiguration seems to be in order, if only he can do it out of Elijah’s line of sight.

He’s saved by the approach of the other customer, who is carrying a stack of cardboard cases and looking bored, but satisfied. “I’ll just go pick up that record,” he suggests hastily, hoping that his relief isn’t too evident in his voice, and ducks away before Elijah can give him more than a curious glance.

He makes his way back to the counter a few moments later with the appropriate plastic case and a newly-conjured twenty-pound note in his hand. Elijah detaches the Muggle security device and hands it to Draco in a small bag with the words ‘Thank You’ printed in blue type on the side.

“Enjoy, and have a nice day,” Elijah says, with a twitch to his lips and a cheerful gleam in his eyes that clearly says he’s enjoying Draco’s cluelessness. Draco grits his teeth, smiles politely, and heads back out into the rain.

 

* * * * *

 

By the end of the day, Draco isn’t any closer to finding the node than he was that morning, and all he has to show for his trouble are feet that ache from walking around half of London and fine blond hair that, _Impervius_ charm or no, is threatening to frizz. Returning to the Ministry with nothing to report and the disastrous combination of Ernie Macmillan and Colin Creevey waiting to hear what he’s come up with don’t do anything to improve his mood.

“We’re working on a theory,” Creevey says excitedly, and MacMillan nods with infuriatingly typical Hufflepuff earnestness. “We think that since Dark Magic spells often require so much more effort than traditional spells, the node has been created to support You-Know-Who with a concentrated supply of magical energy. And Dark Magic is also good for hiding things, so we think that’s why you can’t locate the node itself. You haven’t found it yet, have you?” A little crease appears on Creevey’s brow, suggesting that their theory holding water is more desirable for the moment than Draco making any actual progress.

The thrill of fear that goes down Draco’s spine at the mention of the Dark Lord only lasts for a split-second, and when it’s over he’s annoyed with himself as much as them for the fact that mention of the Dark Lord still provokes any reaction at all.

“You’re joking,” Draco drawls, directing a withering look at Creevey, who wisely shuts his mouth on whatever he had been about to say. “Aren’t you?”

“It’s a sound theory,” MacMillan defends staunchly, and Draco shifts his attention to the one of them who really should know better than to go around digging up skeletons that have been buried twice over. Why the Ministy has assigned MacMillan to this case is beyond him. It’s certainly not for brainpower or talent. Maybe it’s to balance out the overly-excitable Creevey.

“You-Know-Who still has supporters. The Ministry can’t assume they were all eliminated during the Purge. If he’s created this node…”

“He hasn’t,” Draco snaps, once again taking some grim satisfaction in seeing his words snap Creevey’s jaw shut with a clack. “He’s dead. Ask anyone who was there. It’s not some cheap publicity tactic. He’s gone.” Just thinking about it is setting his teeth on edge, but he won’t let them see that. Displays of emotion where the Dark Lord is concerned have never been wise.

“He has followers,” MacMillan argues without heat. “And there are others who will follow his example, look to take up the reins of power…”

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake. Can we please stop looking for more Dark Lords? I think we have quite enough problems as it is.” Draco rubs his temples, furious with himself for losing his temper and with them, the rain, this entire situation for giving him such a headache.

“Just because you don’t _want_ it to be true…” Creevey begins, but MacMillan wisely cuts him off, perhaps recognizing that the look on Draco’s face does not bode well for Creevey’s health if he continues in that vein.

“Everyone’s tired, it’s been a long day. Let’s talk about it in the morning,” he suggests, and Draco continues staring down Creevey for another few slow-counted seconds before turning to face MacMillan, who addresses him wearily. “You’re staying here at the Ministry, right?”

Draco hadn’t actually thought about it until now, but he knows the answer without having to second-guess himself. “No,” he replies, and takes some small satisfaction in the look of surprise that crosses MacMillan’s face. “I’m staying in London. I want to work on this node problem without the distraction of coming and going every day.”

“Where?” MacMillan asks in bewilderment, and Draco bluffs his way out with the ease of long practice.

“I’ll be in touch. The Ministry can contact me by owl with any pertinent information, and I’ll keep you both informed of my findings.”

MacMillan looks distinctly unhappy with the new information, but also like he understands that he has no authority over Draco, and therefore no choice in the matter. “All right. Just don’t disappear; we should really talk about the probability that this has something to do with Dark Magic users in the area.” He speaks as if he’s completely forgotten Draco’s objections to their ludicrous theory, and perhaps he has. Draco doesn’t stoop to the pettiness of starting another argument, mostly because he can’t be bothered sticking around for long enough to finish it.

“I’ll be in touch,” he repeats, and leaves before either of them can say another word.

 

* * * * *

  


It doesn’t take Draco long to relocate Simian Records, and it looks exactly the same as it had hours ago when he’d first stepped in, complete with ‘Room For Rent’ printed on the small card in the window. The only difference is that the store is empty this time, with only Elijah inside, lifting a box onto a shelf. He glances over as soon as Draco enters, announced by the jingle of bells on the door handle.

“Sorry, we’re closing…oh, it’s you again,” Elijah says, without any apparent dismay. “Mr. Malloy, right? Did you finish the album already? White Stripes not to your liking, or was it so good you had to come right back for more?”

Draco had forgotten about the purchased record, to be honest. “I haven’t listened to it yet,” he answers, and swallows the irritation at Elijah’s easy dismissal of him and complete disrespect for his surname. It’s not as if Elijah could know what that name means, of course, and if he’s honest, it’s also something of a relief not to see the immediate battle between suspicion and respect that normally follows any introduction. It’s part of what brought him here, rather than to Diagon Alley.

He shakes the feeling off, because Elijah is still waiting expectantly for his answer. “I actually came back to ask about the room.”

“Oh.” Elijah looks mildly surprised, but he covers it well. “I thought you were only here for a short vacation.”

“Business,” Draco corrects. “I don’t know how long, exactly, but I can pay on a nightly basis, or per week in advance.” He’s mildly annoyed at having to deal with the trifles of room-renting and money-spending at all, but it’s not as if he can have one of his lawyers or accountants handle it. Some things you just have to do yourself.

“Per week is fine,” Elijah agrees absently, combing back dark, mildly unkempt hair. “How long are you planning to stay?” The prospect of having Draco for a flat-mate doesn’t seem to bother him at all, and Draco wonders yet again at the inconceivable ignorance of Muggles to the Wizarding world.

Draco squints at the window and smiles. “As long as it keeps raining.” He looks back at Elijah and suddenly frowns, wondering if he’s getting himself into a troublesome situation. “Do you have a live-in girlfriend?” he asks, cursing himself for not asking earlier. Elijah shouldn’t be a problem, working in the shop all day, but if there’s going to be some brainless chit wandering about and snooping through his things, the arrangement might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Luckily, his fears are almost immediately relieved. “No girlfriend. I’m on my own.”

Something in Elijah’s wry smile tells Draco knows more than he needed to know. No _girl,_ period. Well, that’s certainly interesting. Draco’s assessment of Elijah suddenly takes a sharp turn.

He’s good-looking enough, fine features and large eyes; a bit spooky at first, perhaps, but Draco has seen far stranger things in his time. And Elijah’s gaze is clear as well as bright, possessing a shrewd intelligence and the undercurrent of sharp wit that Draco had seen on display earlier. He still looks young, but acts old enough to make up for it. He’s quite fit, actually. He’s still a Muggle, but Draco could do – and has done – much worse.

“I think I’d like to take you up on that offer, then,” Draco drawls, and when he smiles this time, he shows teeth. He can tell the second that Elijah registers the flirtation, sees it reflected in his eyes and, a startled moment later, his answering smirk.

“And what kind of offer, exactly, do you think I’m making?” Elijah answers, his voice dripping sarcasm, and this, too, is different. Elijah has no knowledge of Draco’s lineage, no understanding of what it means to be a pureblood, and he probably wouldn’t care even if he did. It’s a challenge, a novelty, and Draco rises to it with relish.

“I believe we were negotiating for a bed,” he replies with another sharp smile, and Elijah smiles in kind, but doesn’t back away.

“So we were,” Elijah allows, eyes shining with amusement. “But not mine.”

“We’ll negotiate that later,” Draco dismisses lazily. “Let me take you out to dinner first, and we’ll discuss prices.”

Elijah’s smile grows, and he shakes his head, but it’s at Draco’s forwardness, not a negation. Draco’s predatory instinct resonates with that smile, and he’s answering it without thought, knowing he’s almost won.

“You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Elijah mocks good-naturedly, and tilts his head until his eyes catch the light. “I like seafood.”

 

* * * * *

 

Having sex with men is refreshingly simple. Both parties want it, no questions asked, no strings attached. Everybody wins. Not like with women, where you need to give to get, negotiate endlessly with flowers and kisses just to get into bed. Witches are fickle, and pursuit of them is always time-consuming and rarely worth it. Draco doesn’t even need to ask Elijah; he already knows the answer.

He asks anyway, or rather demands, with a kiss and Elijah’s body pressed against the door to the shop, barely a second after it’s closed. Elijah answers by parting his lips for Draco’s insistent tongue, arms winding around his neck and pulling him closer still. Draco can taste the tang of the shrimp on Elijah’s mouth, and the darker flavour of the beer they’d both had with dinner. Elijah moans when Draco’s hand slides between his legs, and that’s all the negotiation they need.

Elijah’s room is small, and Draco doesn’t even stop to look at the one he’s renting, just pushes Elijah onto the bed and assists him with getting them both out of their clothes. It’s dark in the room, but the window isn’t shuttered, and the street lamps – London is never truly dark – provide enough illumination for Draco to see Elijah’s eyes, and the watery paleness of his skin as it’s revealed beneath the clothing.

It’s also enough for Elijah to see Draco’s scars, the few of them that Healing spells haven’t been able to undo, and Elijah’s hand traces the line down the inside of his arm without speaking, a wordless question.

“Electrical burn,” Draco answers, which is the closest he can come to ‘explosive magical discharge’ and still make sense to a Muggle. Elijah nods, and Draco sees the other questions in his eyes, but he doesn’t ask those, either. And Draco doesn’t volunteer answers.

He distracts Elijah with kisses, and caresses that grow stronger and rougher the longer they go on, as Draco learns Elijah’s reactions and uses them to manipulate his body into mindless arousal, until Elijah stops asking questions with his eyes and merely writhes beneath him while Draco ruthlessly exploits him with every touch.

They come together to join, and Draco is actually startled into hesitation when he realizes that he doesn’t know what to do next. Elijah takes over within the space of a breath, guiding and coaxing, and Draco follows his lead until he’s confident enough to take the lead again.

He’s never needed this, the slow preparation and lubrication of their bodies so that everything could slide together just right. All of his other lovers had been wizards, obviously. They’d had spells for that sort of thing, a quick chant and a wave, and no waiting around for it to be the right time. Elijah only eases gradually, and Draco has to tease his body into acceptance, like convincing a reluctant lover.

He’s somewhat surprised to find that he doesn’t mind it, though. The feel of fingers gently stretching, slipping in and out, the little gasps and nods of reassurance, the Zen peacefulness of losing himself in the prelude to the act itself. He thinks he just might miss this part, when the need for it is gone.

It will be gone, of course. He just doesn’t know when. And that’s something else Draco appreciates about having sex with men. They don’t need to talk about it, and everything goes unspoken.

 

* * * * *

 

It’s been raining in London for eighteen days, and Draco still isn’t any closer to figuring out why. The Ministry has finally given up on trying to coax him out of hiding, at least, and now seem resigned to Draco working in the field and sending sporadic reports whenever he feels the need to keep them informed. Which isn’t often, admittedly, but it’s not as if he has a great deal to report.

The search for the node has been modified from a physical search to a magical one, and if that method isn’t working any better at present, at least it promises eventual results. There are some wizards who never stop learning after school, and some who rest on their laurels. Draco takes what he knows and hones it, becomes better than he had been. Runes spill like ink across the parchment, arranging themselves into magical equations which balance each other out and bring him ever closer to figuring out where, and what, and how.

The room Elijah is renting him is quite nice, although Draco hasn’t yet needed to use the bed, and he’s turned it into a rather pleasantly effective magical node of his own, enhanced with charms and seeking spells. It’s now starting to resemble a stationary divining rod, which is exactly what Draco had been hoping for when he started this project. Within the next few days, it ought to be magnetized, so to speak, like a compass rod, and the node will be north.

He wrote to explain all of this to MacMillan and Creevey, but he doubts either of them have enough expertise in experimental magic to understand what he’s attempting. In the meantime, all he can do is work at setting up the trickier spells during the day, while he can be assured of remaining undisturbed, venturing out whenever he needs to conduct tests.

He’s fallen into a pattern of helping Elijah to close up the shop in the evenings, followed by a nice dinner out, and then they retire to Elijah’s room for the night. It’s surprisingly relaxing to have such a tidy schedule. Draco had been sure that he’d be bored with it by now.

The only real difficulty is concealing what he’s doing from Elijah, and that’s very rarely a problem. Elijah stays in the shop during the day, with a half-hour break for lunch which Draco is always careful to watch for, and they always sleep in Elijah’s room. Draco feels a bit silly acting shifty and sneaking around a harmless Muggle flat-mate, but it can’t be helped. Elijah might not be as dangerous as a Death Eater, but it’s still important to keep him oblivious to what Draco is actually doing here.

He’s caught himself a half-dozen times already, reaching for quills instead of pens when Elijah asks him to write something down, opening his mouth to whisper _Nox_ only to remember at the last moment that he can’t use magic. He makes do with silent charms whenever he can get away with it, and Elijah is easygoing enough to shrug off the occasional slip, He appreciates the electrical objects that Draco somehow manages to fix after only a few moments of frowning and poking, without asking questions about their resurrection. Draco still can’t figure out when they became this comfortable with each other.

He has to be careful to remove and hide all magical items from his person before he goes down to help Elijah close the shop. Elijah isn’t nosy, but he is sometimes absentminded, and it would be terrifyingly easy for him to just pick up something of Draco’s when he can’t find one of his own. The only thing Draco keeps with him at all times is his wand, and if Elijah ever figures out how to _use_ that, they’ll both be in trouble.

Draco pens a letter to MacMillan explaining his newest searching spell, and summons his eagle owl with a thought and a flick of his hand. He hears the obedient hoot an instant later, and pushes the scroll through his newly-created delivery door for the owl to clasp in his talons and take.

The room has a window, but it’s jammed closed, and there’s a screen in the way besides. Draco worked his way around that by blasting a hole in the stone wall with his wand and hiding the damage with an illusion spell. Receiving and sending owls after that bit of architectural restructuring was no longer a problem.

He needs to go out. He’s missing some critical magical items, and the only place to get them is Diagon Alley, whose shops will doubtlessly be closing in a few short hours. Draco summons a white silk shirt from the closet with a wave of his wand, and drapes his cloak on over it with one end flipped back to show off the red satin lining. Never let it be said that Draco Malfoy doesn’t have flair.

He checks his appearance in the mirror and pauses upon seeing the purple-brown bruise just above his collarbone. There’s another lower down, exposed by the deep slashing ‘V’ of his collar, and one that he can just see if he cranes his neck to look. And that will never do.

He erases the lovebites on his skin with the flick of a wand, and tells himself it’s just that easy.

 

* * * * *

 

Draco is helping Elijah to sort a new shipment when they have a visitor, setting off the entrance bells and pushing through the front door with a cocky swagger to his hips and rock-star hair. Draco turns to send the man away, expecting Elijah’s customary, “Sorry, we’re closed for the day,” but instead he sees Elijah break into a grin, setting down the stack of record sleeves he’s holding and bounding over to give the man an enthusiastic hug.

“I was wondering where you’d got to,” Elijah greets him with a laugh, and the newcomer – blond, short, a bit rough-looking – grins back at him and waggles his fingers.

“Important business to attend to, I had to placate an artist first.” The man winks, and Draco’s instincts can’t seem to decide whether to bristle defensively or relax and be amused.

“And by placate, you mean blow,” Elijah drawls, and the blond grins again, innocence and mischief mixed together.

“I prefer the term ‘orally gratify’,” the man declares loftily, and then appears to notice Draco for the first time. “Well well well, looks like you’ve been doing some oral gratifying yourself. Who’s this?”

Elijah rolls his eyes, but steps in immediately to make introductions. “Dom, this is Draco Malfoy, he’s renting my spare room for a while. Draco, this is Dom Monaghan, he owns a recording studio over in Soho and helps me out with a stall at Camden every other week.”

“Draco?” Dom echoes, eyes narrowed interestedly and focused on looking Draco over with what looks like a practiced eye. “Flash name, mate. Charmed.” He holds out his hand, and Draco realizes he’s meant to kiss it instead of shake. He doesn’t make a move to take it, but smiles slightly and drawls, “Likewise, I’m sure.”

Dom’s eyes flick down to his right hand, resting lightly on top of the box of records. “Nice manicure,” he says.

Draco doesn’t know quite how to take that compliment, so he just takes it. “Thank you.”

Dom doesn’t appear to be bothered by the brief response. “So Draco, tell me,” he says idly, and out of the corner of his eye, Draco sees Elijah tense slightly. “How long are you planning to rent the room?”

The gleam in his eye tells Draco he isn’t fooled, that Dom knows exactly what’s been going on between Draco and Elijah, and that room-rental isn’t even half of it. Draco doesn’t know if it’s just cannily good instincts and shrewd guesswork, or if Elijah has talked to Dom about him before this, but judging by the tight set of Elijah’s shoulders, it’s the latter.

“I honestly don’t know,” Draco answers blandly, watching Dom’s fingers twitch with excess energy at his sides. “Until the rain stops.”

“That’s an interesting choice,” Dom says, but his eyes are saying more, and they’re harder and more determined than Draco would have though him capable of, until this very moment.

“That’s my answer,” Draco tells him quietly, matching Dom’s stare to the last degree of intensity.

“Dom,” Elijah breaks in suddenly, and the tension between them snaps as Dom looks away, leaving Draco briefly floundering. “I have the box for tomorrow. You should probably get going soon, you don’t want to get caught – ” _in the rain,_ Draco sees him think, but he changes his answer without blinking an eye “ – in the dark.”

“Right,” Dom agrees, although his tone is disapproving, and Draco would be willing to cast bets on why. His gaze flickers back to Draco for another heartbeat, another measuring look, and then the gravity is gone as if it had never existed, and Dom is all lightness and cheer. “Nice to meet you, Draco.”

“Likewise,” Draco murmurs in agreement, and Elijah’s eyes on him are sharp, but he doesn’t say anything.

Dom takes the box Elijah offers him, shifting the records under one arm and leaning in to kiss Elijah’s cheek. “Take care,” he says, voice gravel-low, and Elijah nods stiffly without replying. Dom nods back and takes his leave, and doesn’t glance back at Draco.

There’s a moment of silence while they both don’t say things, and then Draco breaks it.

“Ex?” he asks mildly.

“Friend,” Elijah answers. His voice is tighter than usual, more controlled. Draco wonders if there’s something in that conversation that he missed.

“He didn’t seem too surprised to hear you had a renter,” Draco comments, and he knows Elijah will probably be able to tell that he’s fishing, but he doesn’t really care enough to disguise the fact.

“He already knew about you.” Elijah’s eyes are hooded, not giving anything away.

Draco pushes, without knowing why, but following his instincts. “Did you tell him I’m your boyfriend?” he asks, and Elijah gives him a neutral look, infuriating in its perfect obliqueness.

“Aren’t you?”

There are shadows in Elijah’s gaze, a stormier blue than usual, and Draco wordlessly holds out a hand, offering his embrace. Elijah shakes his head but lets himself be drawn in anyway, curling one hand loosely against Draco’s chest and resting his head on Draco’s shoulder.

“It’s the rain,” Elijah sighs, and Draco knows that it isn’t, really, but that’s as good an excuse as any. Elijah wouldn’t admit to anything more.

“Come to bed,” he murmurs, winding his arms around Elijah in a spell that requires no magic. “I’ll help you forget.”

Elijah doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t pull away, either. Draco takes his passivity for acquiescence, and pretends they’ve both forgotten that Draco never actually answered the question.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the [](https://goblins-library.livejournal.com/profile)[goblins_library](https://goblins-library.livejournal.com/) crossover challenge, for [](https://cupiscent.livejournal.com/profile)[cupiscent](https://cupiscent.livejournal.com/) who inspired me, and for [](https://zarah5.livejournal.com/profile)[zarah5](https://zarah5.livejournal.com/), who wouldn't back down. Thanks to Brenna and Dee for the spectacular beta jobs.

The searching spell takes him the better part of the day to set up, and involves a lot of tricky rune-work that Draco has never considered his magical forte. Unfortunately, he’s not willing to delegate this to either the frenetic Creevey or that clod MacMillan, and there’s no one he can think of to bring in that he trusts.

He’s cutting it close on time, but there’s still a good hour left before the shop closes, and he doesn’t want to do this over again tomorrow if something in the room is accidentally disturbed. With one last swoop of his wand, he fills the chalice with water, lights the candles, and starts murmuring the spell.

The heady buzz he always feels when working magic fills him, but when he opens his eyes, the crystal pendant hung above the map of London hasn’t moved an inch. He looks closer, and sees the string vibrating, the tiniest amount, but other than that, nothing is happening. The crystal should be pulling towards the location of the node, but instead it remains in place…vibrating with the energy he’s raised, but otherwise useless.

Draco glances away from the crystal, to the compass floating on the surface of the water filling the chalice. It’s not pointing anywhere, as it should be, merely…spinning. In place. _Spinning._

Something is blocking him. Some _one_ is blocking him, and Draco is infuriated enough at his lack of success with the search to cast a divining spell on the crystal itself.

For a moment, he doesn’t think it’s worked, and then a green mist starts to rise out of the chalice, smoky-translucent but still clear enough to show him a silhouette, one all-too-familiar.

Not the Dark Mark, but another serpent, and one with a bite nearly as dangerous. The Children of Slytherin.

He casts again, trying to track them down, even as the serpent fades; but the mist only dissolves faster, leaving him sweating and exhausted with nothing to show for a week’s worth of tricky spell-work except the memory of a symbol, one he’s seen on at least a hundred Ministry reports.

He cleans up the evidence of his failed attempt with a few flicks of his wand and chanted words, extinguishing the candles and banishing the whole mess into his trunk, which closes and locks with a snap. He stills then, staring out the window into the dreary grey light of London, and lets his mind drift for awhile as his eyes unfocus on the falling rain.

There’s a noise behind him. Draco has his wand out and pointed before he can think twice, battle-trained reflexes overcoming reasoned thought, and Elijah freezes in the doorway, eyebrows raised.

“What are you doing here?” Draco snaps, aggrieved. “I could have killed you.”

“With your terrifying stick of doom?” Elijah counters, hand pushing Draco’s wand aside as he steps in close.

Draco glares, and doesn’t back down particularly gracefully. “Don’t start with me, I’ve seen the warnings on those little packets of yours.”

“Cigarettes only kill if you light them on fire,” Elijah points out, toying with the end of Draco’s wand as he studies his face. “You forgot to do that before you pointed the stick.”

 _Wand,_ Draco almost corrects absently, distracted by Elijah’s fingers stroking up and down the wood, but he catches himself in time. “You didn’t answer my question,” he says instead, looking up at Elijah’s face.

“It’s after three, the shop closes early on Saturdays,” Elijah reminds him with an amused little quirk of his lips, the kind of half-smirk, half-private smile that Draco had thought he’d been assured a monopoly on. Apparently – and somewhat distractingly – not. “I thought we could go out.”

Draco must have completely lost track of time, for it to be that late. Elijah’s expression shows a hint of the same surprise, but he doesn’t comment. What he does say, to Draco’s mild annoyance, is, “What is this thing, anyway?” His hand curls around Draco’s wand, sliding up and down curiously and also, judging by the definite smirk now on his face, distinctly suggestive.

Draco finds himself at a loss. “It helps me think,” he says finally, and only years of feigning imperviousness to everything keep him from wincing.

Elijah’s eyebrows climb slowly. “Is that so?” he says evenly, expression still neutrally blank. “It must be a very special stick indeed.”

“Shut it,” Draco growls without heat, tugging his wand out of Elijah’s grasp and tucking it with practiced flair into his sleeve.

Elijah just smiles. “Come on,” he coaxes, gently pulling on Draco’s wrist. “We’re going out.”

 

* * * * *

 

“The National Gallery?” Draco asks in surprise when Elijah tugs him towards the massive entrance, into the queue in front of the doors. It’s not what he expected at all, and he’s honestly amazed that Elijah would bring him here, when they’ve never talked about art.

“I come here sometimes when I want to think, or just be alone,” Elijah tells him. “I thought you might need the break. Have you been here before?”

“No,” Draco answers absently, allowing the guard at the door to check him over, submitting to the search with the ease of someone who has undergone thousands of daily Ministry security checks.

He’s never been interested in Muggle artists, and he’s sure he’s said nothing that would lead Elijah to believe he was. But this afternoon’s revelation, another puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit into place, is still weighing on his mind, and perhaps this will distract him from his thoughts for a short time. It can’t hurt, at least.

They walk in silence through the rooms of paintings, and Draco realizes with mild surprise after they finish the second exhibit that the tension has drained from his body, the headache’s eased, and he’s actually feeling more relaxed and peaceful than he has in days. He shrugs it off and keeps walking, pausing at every frame to study the picture on display before they move on.

“We don’t have anything like this at home,” Elijah says quietly beside him, and Draco realizes they’ve been in front of this picture for a while now; an oil-based painting, centuries old. It’s a religious depiction, but the subject matter doesn’t mean anything to Draco. He’s unfamiliar with Muggle religions beyond knowing they exist, and what these frozen men with their heads bound in gold signify is out of his understanding.

Elijah’s gaze is fixed on the picture, eyes large and old beyond his age. Draco looks back to the painting, to the mirthless tableau of human suffering in every form, and wonders what this painter must have lived through, to have imagined this cornucopia of gruesome death.

“My country just isn’t this old,” Elijah continues, and even though he never looks at Draco, the moment seems almost impossibly intimate, just the two of them and these stiff-bodied men, trapped by an artist into suffering for centuries on end. “These men…they died for what they believed, and in terrible ways. I always feel humbled here. Like there are things in the world I’ll never understand.”

“There are,” Draco agrees evenly. “And there are things these men didn’t understand, in their time. There will always be more to know. But we will never live long enough to learn it.”

Silence, and then Elijah shifts, turning his back on the silent cries of figures being stabbed, stoned, ripped apart by beasts. “I want to show you something,” he says suddenly, and Draco follows him across the mostly-empty room, to a later painting, more vivid and alive, although the beings depicted still don’t move.

“St. George,” Elijah says in a hushed voice, and Draco realizes it’s a gesture of respect. He glances at Elijah curiously, and sees his eyes wide, shining as he looks at the tiny knight eternally battling the fiercely terrifying dragon.

They didn’t get the details right with the dragon, he thinks. There isn’t a wizard’s hand in this, it’s no species Draco can identify, and he knows them all. But Elijah doesn’t seem to care – of course not, he doesn’t know – and stares on in silence, with something akin to awe.

“You like dragons,” Draco says in surprise, guessing at the reason for Elijah’s transfixed expression, and is rewarded by a nod in answer.

“I always have, ever since I was young. I thought you might, too, because of your name and all.” Elijah doesn’t look over at him, but Draco sees the flicker, the almost-glance as he drops his eyes.

“Why do you like them?” Draco asks curiously. He’s surprised, honestly, considering that Elijah’s never actually _seen_ a dragon, and therefore they aren’t even real to him. Draco feels a stab of pity, entirely unexpected, realizing that Elijah probably never will, and will instead continue worshiping these two-dimensional facsimiles, with not even a hint of life breathed into them.

“I admire them,” Elijah answers after a moment, so softly that Draco has to strain to catch the words. “I like to think there’s something out there for us actually worth fighting, besides each other. They would be noble opponents, don’t you think? Worthy of respect.”

Draco hadn’t realized, until that moment, how very much they had in common.

They walk through the rest of the gallery in companionable silence, and end up making their way back to the entrance through a hall of portraits, stodgy and stolid, unmoving. For a moment Draco is unnerved, waiting tautly for an insult or a sharp glare, but after a few seconds he relaxes into a smug superiority, silently taunting the Muggle-drawn faces for their inability to mock him.

Elijah seems oblivious to his change of mood, but after a few minutes the corners of his lips turn up in a faint smile. “So, which ones of these are yours?” he asks, and Draco looks over in surprise.

“Mine?”

“Your ancestors,” Elijah clarifies. His eyes are measuring Draco again, large and thoughtful. “You are an aristocrat, aren’t you?”

Well, yes. No. _Yes._ …kind of.

“Now why would you think that?” Draco asks, playing amused and lifting an arched eyebrow for good measure.

Elijah shrugs. “Your attitude, your wardrobe…your looks,” he muses, still sizing Draco up meditatively. Draco isn’t sure whether to be flattered or not.

“And if I was?” Draco asks, curious.

Elijah shrugs. “Hey, I’m American. It doesn’t matter much to us. We pretend to be jealous half the time, but we really don’t care. You’re only important to us if you’re a movie star.”

“Oh.” Draco swallows a surprising flash of disappointment – had he _wanted_ Elijah to think he was important? – and tilts his head. “Of course not.”

“Come on, ‘fess up. What’s your full name?” Elijah presses, and Draco blinks, bewildered.

“What?” he asks, but Elijah avoids his gaze, examining a sixteenth-century ruff instead.

“There must be a junior, or…no, a fourth, or fifth. Draco Malfoy the fifteenth.”

Draco can’t decide whether to be affronted or amused. “No suffix,” he declares firmly, lifting his head in an impression of his haughty aunt. “I’m an original. One-of-a-kind.”

Elijah laughs, and something about his expression softens, relaxes. Draco feels a tightness in his chest loosen with it, and marvels at how easily Elijah can completely set him at ease.

“I know,” he says simply, and Draco smiles.

 

* * * * *

 

Sunday is his day to meet a friend for lunch, so he begs off grocery shopping with Elijah and fires off a quick progress report to the Ministry before combing his hair and heading out. They’re meeting at the Conservatory in Diagon Alley, so he Apparates to the corner and walks down the street, annoyed by the rain but not willing to let it ruin his good mood.

The maitre d’ knows him, and ushers him through the dimly-lit entrance hallway to the Conservatory itself, a room made of glass and filled with plants, vines creeping overhead to create an archway of natural light and greenery. They try to meet here once every month at least, and he already knows where she’ll be waiting.

He saunters into the restaurant and sees her gaze light on his suit almost before his face, taking the measure of it with educated eyes. He’s ready for the phrase, “Is it Armani?” to trip off of her lips, but instead she tilts her head, sleek red-gold hair twisted up into a Celtic knot and catching the sunlight filtering through the rain, and says, “Zegna?”

He should have known better than to underestimate Ginny.

“Do you like it?” he asks, kissing her cheeks in their ritual greeting before settling in across the table from her. The light in the Conservatory is weak, the glass windowpanes not their usual charmed clarity of sunlight and warmth, but it doesn’t ruin the atmosphere. He rather likes the change, actually.

“Of course I do, you know better than to ask. I’d wondered when you were going to have a new suit made, you were starting to look positively shabby.” The gleam of her smile tells him she’s teasing, and he winks at her for it, picking up the menu while she takes charge of the wine list. At first he’d protested her taking this liberty, but she had proven to have excellent taste in wine, so he eventually stopped fussing and let her choose.

The war had been good to her, although she’d definitely paid a high price. Both parents gone, and two brothers, but Ginny had played it smart and kept her head, and she’d come out on top with enough money to set herself up as one of the best independent security agents in the business. She and Draco had run into each other on a job in the Hebrides a while back, and had been nearly inseparable ever since.

The short version is that Draco is fond of Ginny, and Ginny is fond of Draco. War is good for some things, after all. Bringing people together. They have a mutual understanding and don’t talk about the people it also tore apart.

The waiter gives them a recognizable look of aesthetic appreciation as he passes the table. Draco’s used to it by now. He and Ginny together make quite the stunning pair, silver-blonde and fire-gold, dressed in expensively tailored suits and looking as if they’d just stepped out of a fashion magazine.

Ginny’s become quite the looker since their schooldays. She’s grown into a lovely young woman, with impeccable taste in everything and an attitude cool enough to freeze Death Eaters. She’s grown up. And Draco has been charmed ever since he first noticed.

“So how have you been, Gin?” he asks, setting his menu aside after a brief glance at the specials.

“Same old,” she replies lightly, folding the wine list to lay on top of his menu. “Catching the bad guys, supporting the good. What are we having?”

“Braised lamb,” he answers decisively, and then pauses, feeling magnanimous. “You pick the appetizer.”

She smiles and it turns her even more beautiful, eyebrows elegantly arched. “Letting a Weasley pick the wine _and_ the antipasti? Draco Malfoy, I’m almost ashamed of you.”

“You’re not a Weasley,” Draco sniffs, enjoying the verbal fencing. “Weasleys are poor, compulsively ill-mannered, prejudiced, and homely.”

Ginny laughs. “That doesn’t make any sense, even for you. You can’t just change the rules to suit yourself whenever they don’t please you.”

“Why not?” Draco asks, mock-offended. “I’m the one who makes the rules in the first place.”

“Is that part of being a Malfoy?” she asks, with a darker light in her eye that says she knows better, but she has earned the right to bait him a little, so he allows it.

“No,” he answers coolly. “That’s part of being Draco.”

He’d made the choice, somewhere along the way, to never consciously use any variation on the phrase, ‘A Malfoy is.’ And he’ll stick by that, to the end. What _Draco_ is…ah, that’s a different matter entirely.

She knows him well enough to let it go, and the waiter appears with perfect timing to take their order. Ginny selects a Mediterranean cabernet to complement the lamb, and a dish of olives and feta cheese for their appetizer.

They make small talk while they wait, who’s doing what, and who, and why. Ginny shares Ministry gossip with him, the things he’s either been out of touch too long to hear or simply ignorant of, and he thinks she’s missed how tense he’s been, until she looks up to fix him with a direct, Ginny-Weasley-perfected stare.

“So what’s bothering you?” Ginny asks, and Draco realizes ruefully that he should have known better than to think she wouldn’t notice.

“Technically, I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Draco hedges, and Ginny’s expression goes from sympathetic to stern.

“Don’t you ‘technically’ me; when has that stopped you before?” She stabs and twirls an olive onto her silver appetizer fork with practiced ease, then pins him with her stare. “What’s going on?”

It’s a relief to be able to tell someone, and he’s honestly thankful she’s brought it up. Elijah’s noticed, of course, but their unspoken rules say that he can’t ask about it, and Draco couldn’t explain even if he did. It’s a difficult silence to maintain, and he suspects their relationship, such as it is, is starting to feel the strain.

“I’m stuck,” he says flatly, and impales a chunk of feta with restrained frustration. “I hate it, but there’s nothing more I can do, and I’ve had to send to the Ministry for help. I _hate_ asking for help.”

Ginny’s tone is sympathetic, but she doesn’t coddle him, just nods in understanding. “I know you do.”

They pick at the dish of olives and feta for a bit, and then Ginny asks, “What do you need?”

Draco’s lips thin, but it’s only irritation at himself, and at the situation. “An Auror with experience in cult cases,” he admits grudgingly, and then catches her eyes, pointing sternly with his appetizer fork. “And that’s all I can say, so don’t ask. This is tricky enough as it is.”

“I would never,” Ginny swears, wide-eyed innocence, and picks up her glass of wine to clink against his. “Drink up. Let it be, for now.”

They finish off the antipasti, and Draco sits back with a sigh. He’s brooding again, and he knows it. But the Children of Slytherin aren’t just a cult…they’re also his own. He’s having a serious crisis of mixed loyalties, and there’s no one he can tell. Yet.

“So what else are you doing here, besides spending your time delving into magical cult intrigues?” Ginny asks after their meal has arrived, artfully arranged on vine-motif flatware.

“Slumming,” Draco replies lightly, grateful for the change in subject. “Learning to live like a Muggle.”

He hadn’t known Ginny’s eyebrows could jump that high. “You?”

He hides a smile behind his wine glass, and shrugs gracefully. “It’s harder than it sounds. Their methods are so crude.”

Ginny shakes her head, amazement giving way to amusement. “Draco Malfoy, undercover Muggle. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“I’m taking the opportunity to learn about non-Wizarding culture,” Draco replies loftily, piercing his serving of lamb with practiced precision.

“You hate Muggles,” Ginny says pointedly, ignoring his theatrics.

Draco pauses with a bite of chicken halfway to his mouth, and raises his eyebrows eloquently. “I hate Muggle-born wizards. There’s a difference.”

“You can’t be serious.” Her expression says she doesn’t understand, and he’s honestly not surprised by that at all. She wasn’t raised with horror stories of magical and non-magical worlds colliding, books full of the evidence of those few attempts at cooperation going horrifyingly wrong. He doesn’t choose to enlighten her. One thing that he loves about Ginny is her surprising naivete on certain subjects, and he won’t ruin her illusions for no good reason.

“What?” he asks innocently instead. “It’s not as if we’re going to have any half-breed offspring together.”

He couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried. Her jaw drops and she stares openly, obviously stunned. “You’re _sleeping_ with him?”

If there’s one thing Draco understands, it’s the beneficial uses of shock value.

“I find him entertaining. Surely you didn’t expect me to remain _celibate._ ” He gives an exaggerated shudder, trying to cover the tightness in his voice on what should be a light subject, and she shakes her head wonderingly.

“Only you,” she says finally. “Only you would have the balls to act like you have for all of these years towards Muggles, and then turn around and hop into bed with one.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” he snorts. “It’s just a diversion while I work this case.” He tries to ignore the uncomfortable crawling sensation that follows that statement, and distracts himself with reasoning. Elijah stays in his own world where he belongs, without mucking about in theirs, and that’s where Draco will leave him. He’s not a Muggle-born wizard, he’s not a Squib, he’s not anything. He’s not even an issue.

He breaks out of his thoughts to see Ginny watching him evenly across the table.

“Is he?” she asks, and doesn’t say anything more. Draco changes the subject.

 

* * * * *

 

When the door to Simian swings open with a jarring jangle of warning, the last person Draco expects to see stepping inside is Harry Potter.

“Excuse me,” Draco says coolly, leaving Elijah at the counter blinking in confusion at the abandonment.

Harry smirks when he sees Draco, and only Draco’s considerable self-control keeps him from slamming Harry face-down into one of the racks and throttling him. Regretfully, it’s a show of restraint that Harry would never be able to appreciate.

“It’s been a while, Malfoy,” Harry comments smugly, and that almost does it for the self-control Draco has been so dutifully demonstrating.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Potter?” Draco snarls, voice lowered because he doesn’t want the shop’s customers – or for that matter, the shop’s _owner_ – to overhear.

“A little bird told me you needed some help with a situation,” Harry says, not bothering to do the same. His little finger and thumb shake in the silent signal for ‘owl’, and the smirk doesn’t leave his lips. Draco has to crush the schoolboy urge to punch it, and the even more infantile urge to slam Harry against the nearest wall and kiss him.

Bloody Potter and his bloody attractiveness. Even wearing a distinctly unattractive expression and an outright _hideous_ excuse for a shirt, he still looks good. And Draco hasn’t been immune to that famous Potter charm since the middle of fifth year.

Eventually, the words and the gesture sink in through the haze of lust that is always Draco’s second reaction (the first being outright fury) to Harry Potter. “ _You’re_ the one they sent?” he says disbelievingly, and his heart sinks while his brain continues spitting expletives.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Draco asks for an Auror with experience in handling cult cases, and ends up with Harry Potter, Super-Auror Extraordinaire. It figures.

“How did you find me?” Draco asks, crossing his arms over his chest and fighting the urge to start sulking.

Harry rolls his eyes dramatically. “I’m an _Auror,_ Malfoy. It’s what we do.” His condescension speaks in volumes, and once again Draco has to put a chokehold on his temper before he lets it get away with him.

“Since when have you had experience handling cult cases?” he asks, and Harry sobers slightly, shaking his head.

“Not cults, plural. One in particular.” And they both know what that one is, Draco thinks, holding Harry’s eyes and sorting through feelings of dismay, rebellion, relief, and trepidation, finally to arrive at something like acceptance.

“They already know,” Draco states, filling in what Harry isn’t saying. “ _You_ already know.”

He hadn’t told anyone yet, wanting to be secure, afraid to let anyone but an Auror in on what he’d learned, lest he end up under suspicion or forced to take sides yet again. But if they’d called in Harry, they must already know which cult it is, because everyone’s favourite Slytherin-hater is the Ministry’s resident expert.

“They suspected,” Harry corrects him. “You just confirmed.”

Draco scowls. He knows better than to let Harry trip him up like that, and he knows better than to let himself fall for it. “I was going to tell you,” he snaps, irritated that he has to deal with Harry now as well, on top of everything else. “That’s why I asked for a cult Auror.”

“But you didn’t specify which cult,” Harry points out, looking utterly pleased with himself. “That’s why I guessed it was this one, and asked for the case.”

So no one else knows. Yet.

Harry looks at him, light reflecting off of his ridiculous glasses. “It is them, right? The Children of Slytherin?” He looks serious again, concerned and professional, and Draco hates it when he does that. When he’s behaving like an infant, it’s easier to pretend that Draco hasn’t wanted to get him into bed for the past ten years. When he starts acting grown-up, it makes things considerably more difficult.

“It’s them,” Draco says heavily. Harry’s eyes ask him for an explanation, so he summarizes. “Searching spell on the node, divining spell on the focus object when the search failed, tracking spell on the source of interference when the divining spell was blocked.”

Harry blinks. “You did all of that at once?” he asks in disbelief. “I don’t know whether I should be applauding your skill or pitying your impulsive recklessness.”

Draco snorts dismissively. “Don’t even start with me on impulsive recklessness, Potter, it’s what Gryffindors are famous for, when they aren’t getting killed for their own self-sacrificing stupidity.”

Harry nods, acknowledging the hit, and taps his chin thoughtfully, eyes distancing. He focuses on Draco a second later, so sharply it startles him. “You saw one of the known cult members when you cast the spell?” he inquires. “Or a location?”

Draco shakes his head. “Just the symbol. Slytherin serpent, their trademark.”

Harry hisses, obviously not expecting that answer. “So they want us to know,” he says quietly, and Draco hesitates.

“I doubt they would have expected that method of attack on their masking wards,” he points out, a bit ruffled at having Harry suggest that his spell-casting is in any way predictable or easy to deflect. Harry waves him off, lips twisting in irritation, but Draco presses on. “It probably manifested as a serpent because that was the easiest way for the tracking spell to report the source of the interference. If they were acting as a group to create the wards, their energies would be more easily identifiable as an entity rather than a number of individuals.”

“Maybe,” Harry allows, and Draco accepts that as the best he’s going to get. “But we still don’t know why.”

Draco looks at him in disbelief. “Isn’t it obvious why?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest again in semi-petulant protest. “They’re creating a power source.”

Harry still doesn’t look convinced. “Why, though? Why go to all of that trouble, when they know it’s going to attract our attention? Why run the risk of being discovered over this, when we haven’t had a lead on them in months?”

Draco shakes his head. “That’s your job to figure out, not mine. But,” he adds quietly, “I doubt they meant for their power source to attract so much unwanted attention. I think we can assume that was an accident.”

“I’m not assuming anything,” Harry says stubbornly, and Draco bites his tongue as a more subtle substitute for rolling his eyes. Behaving like a child won’t accomplish anything, and one of them has to be the mature one here. It sure as hell isn’t going to be Harry.

Harry glances sideways at Elijah – who is still standing behind the counter, doing a poor job of pretending to ignore them – through slitted eyes, and manages to look almost snake-like. Unsurprising, really. Everyone in their class at school knows by now that Harry Potter should have been a Slytherin. “Who’s he?”

Draco’s immediate reaction is to lie and claim ignorance, but he is renting Elijah’s spare room, and the way Elijah is looking at him right now, unfortunately, makes it fairly obvious that they’re closely acquainted. “A friend,” he says shortly.

“A Muggle friend?” Harry says disbelievingly. “Pull the other one, Malfoy.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Draco snaps; and there it is again, the intense urge to shove Harry around, bruise him and mark him and Merlin, this isn’t getting them anywhere. Harry can see it, too; he knows Draco has wanted him for years, and right now Draco doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“Look,” he says finally, after a reminder to himself that Elijah looks tense enough to throw Harry out at any moment if he thinks Harry’s upsetting Draco, and Draco does _not_ want to be in the middle of that confrontation. “That’s all I know. I’m working on some new spells to see if I can locate the node, I’ll let you know as soon as I come up with anything.”

“You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” Harry says bluntly, and Draco winces, sure that was loud enough for someone to overhear. He has to give Harry credit, though; he’d been sure that the nature of their relationship was going to pass beneath notice. Clearly, he had been underestimating Harry’s abilities as a detective.

Of course, the protective glare Elijah has leveled at Harry across the room probably had something to do with clueing him in.

Draco prides himself on being able to leave the past in the past. So what if he was once turned into a weasel (a pure white weasel, he’d like to point out) on Harry’s account? He can let it go. Harry, however, is utterly unable to forgive even the slightest of sins, and holds to each personal grudge with a death grip which, under other circumstances, might actually be rather impressive.

All in all, this doesn’t bode well for their current situation not turning into a confrontation.

“He’s pretty,” Harry says softly, almost an undertone but with the smirk back in his voice. “You have good taste.”

His eyes rove over Elijah, and Draco sees Elijah straighten under the observation, chin up and eyes blazing. For a moment, caught between the heat of those two linked gazes, Draco forgets to breathe. Then Harry turns back slowly, and his voice when he speaks rings loud and clear through the shop, tone conversational but no less vicious for all of that.

“Is he better than Pansy?”

Draco’s breath, newly recovered, stutters in his throat. “Potter,” he says, deadly-soft. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

He hasn’t thought about Pansy for a while, and he doesn’t want to start now. She still has ties to Slytherin and its errant children, which is probably what has reminded Harry of her now. The fact that she’s also the easiest way for Harry to score a hit on Draco – through Elijah, underhanded bastard that Harry is – also undoubtedly factors in.

Children of Slytherin is one reason he doesn’t think about Pansy much anymore. The other is fairly obvious. No girl likes to be the last one a man sleeps with before deciding he doesn’t like having sex with women.

Most of the shop’s patrons are staring at them now, and he wonders with a sinking feeling if Elijah will forgive Draco for making a scene in his shop.

Harry appears to have decided to quit while he’s ahead. “I’ll be in touch, Malfoy,” he sneers, and Draco holds eye contact until Harry has to be the one to break and look away. “Don’t try anything else exceptionally foolish while I’m gone.”

Draco closes his eyes and counts to ten, and by the time he opens them again, Harry is gone. Elijah’s beside him, a warm presence although his eyes are cool, considering.

Draco expects him to start asking questions, ‘who was that?’ and ‘what did he want?’ but what he gets instead is, “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Draco blows out a breath; releasing steam, so to speak, and turns to Elijah. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it.” There’s something else in Elijah’s eyes, and Draco is used to guessing at Elijah’s emotions because they’re so rarely displayed on the surface, but right now he’s not in the mood.

“What?” Draco asks, aggravated.

Elijah’s gaze doesn’t get any less opaque, but he speaks clearly enough.

“I was thinking,” he says thoughtfully, “that he looks a lot like me.”

 

* * * * *

 

“Are you married?” Elijah asks quietly after dinner, and Draco is so surprised that he almost drops his spoon.

“What?” He can’t think of other words for a moment, just sits and blinks, dumbfounded.

Elijah shrugs, but he’s avoiding Draco’s eyes again, toying with his pudding, and Draco can’t read him. “It’s just…I feel like you have this whole other life. Not that I think you’re lying to me,” he adds hastily, glancing up through thick-dark lashes for a brief instant of eye contact. “Just that you…might not be telling me the whole truth.”

Draco sits, staring, with absolutely no idea of what to say or how to explain himself.

“It’s all right,” Elijah says after a moment, setting his spoon down and sighing, retrieving the napkin from his lap to wipe his hands on in a clear gesture of closure. “I just felt like I ought to ask.”

“Elijah…” For the first time, Draco realizes that he doesn’t have a way out. He can lie, of course, but he certainly can’t tell the truth, at least not without losing Elijah’s trust completely. There’s no way he would believe Draco’s story.

Elijah shakes his head, eyes downcast, but Draco sets his palms flat on the table and does his best to explain what he can, in terms Elijah will understand.

“I’m a…scientist,” he decides, after a moment of deliberation and comparison of Wizarding-Muggle offices. “I’m here to figure out what’s causing the storm, to see if phenomena like this can be predicted in the future and avoided.”

Close enough, he thinks. Elijah still looks skeptical, but the fact that Draco is now volunteering information seems to be drawing him out a little.

“You’re a meteorologist?” he says doubtfully.

Draco tries to figure out what that word means and then decides that it would be best if he just agreed. “Yes.”

Elijah appears to be mulling that over. “And the guy who came into the shop earlier…?”

“Another scientist, someone from another division.” He’ll have to remember to fill Harry in on the cover story, just in case he and Elijah ever cross paths again. Although he fervently hopes that will never happen, for all of their sakes.

Elijah has another question in his eyes, so Draco answers it for him. “We were never lovers.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Elijah says quietly, but Draco wants to be firm on this point.

“I knew him in school, I carried a torch for him for a while. That’s all.”

Elijah nods, still subdued, but the tense set of his shoulders seems to have eased a little, and Draco’s glad of that.

And the truth is, Elijah does remind him of Harry in some ways. The way he understands things like clocks and espresso machines, can make a telephone call without batting an eyelash, and the directions his hair sticks up in when he’s rumpled at the end of the day. But not in any way that matters. Not in the most important ways.

Elijah is as fierce as Harry, but more thoughtful, weighing his loyalties the same way Draco does. He’s honest like Harry, but not above secrecy, which is far more in Draco’s line.

For a while, Draco’d had a thing for Oliver Wood, who was smug, cocky, demanding, and bossy – as close to a Slytherin as you could get and still be a Gryffindor. Elijah reminds him of Oliver sometimes. He thinks maybe that has something to do with it.

Or maybe it just has something to do with him being Elijah.

 

* * * * *

 

It isn’t that Draco is _loud_ in bed, exactly, more that Elijah is just so _quiet._ Draco asks him why, that night, when their skin is cooling in all the places they aren’t stuck together.

“I like to hear you,” Elijah says, his fingers tangling warmly in Draco’s damp hair. “I like listening.”

Draco has never once in his life worried about listening. When he was younger, he took his pleasure exactly as he pleased, and once he became older, it didn’t matter how much noise his partners made, as long as he was satisfied and everyone got what they wanted. He didn’t like screamers anyway, they gave him a headache. Whatever pleasure they find should be their own, he doesn’t really need to know about it. He just assumes that if they’re actively participating, they’re also enjoying themselves.

Maybe that’s why he’s asking the question now. Elijah makes him want to be sure.

Draco tries it Elijah’s way the next night, more out of perversity than anything else. He matches his tempo to the constant patter of the rain and their heartbeats, and for the first time he hears the silvery gasp when Elijah comes.

It’s hours later that he realizes he’s still awake, and Elijah is long asleep, spooned against his chest. He shouldn’t be thinking about the Children of Slytherin and the Ministry and the node and Harry – _especially_ not Harry – but he is, and he can’t quiet his brain enough to sleep.

Draco pulls and Elijah rolls with him, back against his chest, and sighs. Nothing like Harry. Harry would have fought him, all the way, and then argued with him over the fight itself.

It’s useless to do this. There are things he can’t tell Elijah, yes, but there are things he _won’t_ tell Harry, and never would. A wizard isn’t the answer. Or maybe it is, but not _that_ wizard.

He’s tired. Too tired, and if he doesn’t drift off soon, he’ll be watching the sun rise through the windows and the water droplets smearing the glass. Elijah’s breathing is soft and even, and his hand has curled trustingly around Draco’s against the pillow.

Yes. No. Maybe.

Draco closes his eyes, nestles further beneath the covers into the warmth of Elijah’s naked body, and listens to the rain falling.


	3. When It Rains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the [](https://goblins-library.livejournal.com/profile)[goblins_library](https://goblins-library.livejournal.com/) crossover challenge, for [](https://cupiscent.livejournal.com/profile)[cupiscent](https://cupiscent.livejournal.com/) who inspired me, and for [](https://zarah5.livejournal.com/profile)[zarah5](https://zarah5.livejournal.com/), who wouldn't back down. Thanks to Brenna and Dee for the spectacular beta jobs.

It takes Draco a few minutes to realize that the slight figure walking towards him down the sidewalk and juggling large paper bags is Elijah, and he actually stops in surprise. He hadn’t expected to see Elijah out and about on his day off; he’d kissed Draco goodbye early in the morning and then disappeared to wherever it was that he had planned to spend the day.

“What are you doing here?” Draco asks, startled.

Elijah rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Buying groceries. You know, those things that magically show up in the refrigerator so that we don’t starve?”

Draco pauses, brought up short by the familiar biting sarcasm of the words and the less-familiar, exasperated fondness in Elijah’s tone. “You’re not intimidated by me at all, are you?” he asks curiously.

Elijah arches an eyebrow in a way that so perfectly mirrors Draco’s expression it must be practiced. “Should I be?”

Draco thinks about snarling, just for effect, but Elijah unexpectedly stretches up to give him a brief kiss on the lips. “Don’t sulk,” he says lightly, with that tiny smile playing over his face that drives Draco half-mad. “I’m making shrimp kebabs for dinner.”

“I’ll be back soon,” Draco promises, and Elijah nods, still half-smiling, and walks away towards the shop. Draco watches him go, and wonders, not for the first time, what he’s really doing here. And he still doesn’t know.

“He suits you,” an unexpected voice says from behind him, and Draco turns with a sick feeling to see Pansy Parkinson standing on the sidewalk behind him, watching. “Better than I ever did.”

She looks good, at least more put-together than the last time they saw each other, which was during a screaming match about choosing loyalties that Draco honestly can’t remember which side of he was on. Sleek and slim, textbook Pansy, with a dark suit chosen to set off her perfect, milk-white skin.

“What do you mean?” Draco asks, and Pansy shrugs elegantly.

“Just that. He’s a good match for you. If you insist on not having a suitable lady on your arm, at least he’s better than one of your faux-enemy-rivals. Really, Draco, it’s far past time you gave up chasing the good boys.”

Draco grits his teeth, and counts to three in a way that reminds him all-too-well of the fights they had when they were still a couple. “What are you doing here, Pansy?” he asks after the final number, and she pouts a little at his refusal to make small talk, but at least she answers.

“Giving you the answer to a problem you might be frustrated with,” she replies casually, and looks pointedly up at the grey sky. “Dastardly weather we’re having, don’t you think?”

Draco’s eyes narrow, and he forces himself to keep his voice level. “What are you getting at, exactly?”

“Oh, don’t be so sullen, Draco, it doesn’t become you.” She tosses her head dramatically and her ponytail bobs behind her, ink-black and shiny. “Anyone could see why you’re here, and it’s not for _him._ ” Her chin juts in the direction of Elijah’s departure, lip curled in scorn. “You’re biding your time while you try to figure out how to undo the repository.”

“Pansy,” Draco says; very patiently, he thinks, considering. “What do you know?”

“Only that your searching spells won’t turn anything up, because you’re looking in the wrong place.” Pansy pauses dramatically, clearly taking advantage of the opportunity to pay him back for being so short with her. Draco fights the near-overwhelming desire to throttle her, and starts counting again.

She gives up on waiting for him halfway through seven. “The repository isn’t _in_ a place. It _is_ a place. The repository is London. It’s feeding off of the energy of the city and storing it up. That’s why you can’t find it.”

Draco’s mind stops counting and starts whirring. “If that’s true,” he begins consideringly, ignoring Pansy’s annoyed huff of breath at being second-guessed, “There still has to be a focal point, a way to undo the spell. It’s not centered on a person, or it would be mobile. The spell itself has to be tied to an object.”

“Oh, _that._ ” Pansy waves her hand dismissively, but her eyes gleam with delight at being able to show off superior knowledge. “It’s something that’s important to us. You should know better than anyone what we prize. And you’ve been close all along, you just didn’t key the search spells correctly. Don’t look for the repository, it won’t do you any good. Look for the _focusing_ object.”

“Which is?” Draco prompts irritatedly, but Pansy ignores him.

“Just be careful,” she says instead. “They know you’re here for the Ministry, they’re onto you.”

“Who?” Draco snaps, but Pansy merely fixes him with an oblique stare and purses her dark red lips.

“Good luck,” she says, and Disapparates.

Draco snarls a few choice words to the place she was just standing, and stomps back to his workroom to reconfigure the search spells.

 

* * * * *

 

The searching spells still aren’t working. Draco is considering child sacrifice as a viable option at this point, so long as it gets him results.

“I know you’re here, so where the fuck are you?” Draco snarls, scattering sand furiously over a map inscribed with runes, at least _one_ of which should be glowing right now. The runes peek up at him through their new coating of dust, and steadfastly refuse to do anything at all.

Draco stops and breathes, but that only leaves him in silence punctuated by his laboured breathing and the ever-present sound of raindrops hitting the windowpane and the roof above.

“At least stop the rain,” Draco pleads uselessly, banishing the map back into the trunk and cleaning up the sand with a furious sweep of his wand. He stalks to the window and glares out into the grey sky, as if he could somehow conjure up a location for the node through sheer force of will. “Stop with the fucking rain already!”

“Sometimes,” Elijah says quite calmly from behind him, “I feel like you and I are living in different worlds.”

Draco turns around to see him lounging in the doorway, wearing jeans and a Muggle band t-shirt, and takes a moment to wonder at how true that statement is.

“Shop’s closed,” Elijah says needlessly, and Draco sees that he’s turning over a small paper packet in his hands, around and around. “I thought we could go get some dinner, take your mind off of…” _Whatever the hell it is you do up here,_ his expression says. “Your work.”

“I’m getting it right this time,” Draco promises, disregarding the fact that Elijah has no idea what he’s talking about. “If I have to go insane from insomnia and starve to death doing it, I’m finding that bloody thing.”

“Of course you will,” Elijah says patiently, rolling his eyes. “Going down with the Titanic.”

“What’s that?” Draco asks cautiously, and Elijah looks at him as if he’s lost a few screws.

Draco does his best to stare back belligerently. It’s not _his_ fault the Muggle History course may have had a few gaps in the syllabus.

Elijah explains. Draco listens long enough to get the gist of it, and then sniffs. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says dramatically. “I would have been first on the lifeboat.”

“Of course you would’ve,” Elijah answers. And it’s just that easy. Two minutes, tops, and Draco is suddenly ready to take on the world again. He wonders sometimes if Elijah has a hidden talent at Cheering Charms.

“Titanic,” Draco repeats with relish, committing the name to memory. The fact that they now have a private joke which no one else of Draco’s acquaintance would be able to understand gives him rather more pleasure than it should have.

“Well, if you’re planning to starve to death in the name of science, at least take this first.” Elijah holds out the paper packet, and Draco is surprised into speechlessness.

“What is it?” he asks finally, accepting the paper and turning it over in his hands curiously, thumb rubbing at the strip of Muggle tape holding it sealed.

“Open it.” Elijah’s eyes aren’t veiled, exactly, but they’re not giving anything away, either. Draco has never been any good at patience when it comes to surprises, particularly unknown gifts, so he gives in and peels off the tape.

When the chain slithers into his hand, he finds that he’s lost for words again. “Elijah,” he says, and then stops to shake his head and stare.

The chain is silver, and attached to a pendant that’s light for its size, but substantial enough to have some reassuring weight where it lays in his open palm. The silver dragon snarls up at him, coiled and fierce, its tail a tangle and wings spread defensively wide.

“Why?” Draco asks finally, too amazed even to express his gratitude.

Elijah doesn’t seem to take his choice of words amiss. “Think of it as a birthday present,” he suggests with a shrug.

Draco’s eyes narrow, curiosity rather than suspicion. “My birthday isn’t for months.”

“Neither is mine.” Elijah still hasn’t really smiled, but there’s something about his expression that says he’s trying to, or perhaps only thinks he should. “But I didn’t know if you would be around that long.”

Draco doesn’t bother trying to talk himself out of kissing Elijah right now. It’s not sentimental, and it’s not maudlin; it’s a thank you. “Until it stops raining,” he promises, hands whispering down Elijah’s narrow chest, thumbs riding over mostly-soft nipples.

“I know,” Elijah whispers, and kisses him again.

The fact that this pendant is the closest Elijah has ever come to seeing a true dragon is suddenly unbearable, and Draco blinks as the germ of an idea makes itself known. Technically, of course, it’s against the rules. But Draco has never been one to worry over rules.

“Come on,” he says suddenly. “We’re going downtown. There’s something I want you to see.”

 

* * * * *

 

The Wizarding Art Gallery is conveniently located in London, which is a blessing because Draco isn’t sure how he would have explained the Floo Network to Elijah, and he’s pretty sure that even the most thorough of kisses wouldn’t distract Elijah from noticing an Apparition.

The entrance to the gallery is another matter, but Draco has thought this through on the way over, and he’s ready with an explanation. “It’s a holograph,” he assures Elijah, and takes a moment to thank Ron Weasley, of all people, for acquainting him with magic-mimicking Muggle technology.

Elijah eyes the solid-looking brick wall in front of them with trepidation. “Why is it so well-hidden?” he asks suspiciously, and Draco gropes for another cover story.

“It’s the Museum of Multimedia Art Forms and Technologies,” he lies smoothly, gesturing expansively to help his point. “Cutting edge blend of modern art and science. It’s kind of an in-joke, you know, to see which visitors can spot the door. There’s a more obvious front entrance around the other direction, but I thought you would appreciate this one.”

He holds his breath until Elijah nods, and then adopts a cheerful smile and waves him forward. “Go ahead, then. Walk right through. It’s safe, I promise. Here, I’ll go first.”

It’s probably a better idea for him to precede Elijah, anyway. Wizards aren’t always the most subtle of creatures, and he’s not honestly sure what Elijah will see on the other side of the hidden entrance. So he gives Elijah’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze, directs his attention to the secret door, and steps through.

They’re in luck. It’s not a busy day, and the one or two other visitors Draco can see are dressed – more or less – in Muggle clothing, undoubtedly having come from elsewhere in the city. He figures he can explain away the odd ones out by telling Elijah they’re ‘artists’, and congratulates himself on (thus far) a job well done. Now he just has to get them through the gallery and out safely, and they’re home free.

Elijah steps through the wall and looks around with interest, examining the wall he’s just walked through and putting his hand back through it experimentally. Draco smiles tolerantly at his curiosity, and then holds out a hand to lead Elijah into the foyer and the galleries. He earns a somewhat surprised look, which is understandable considering how non-demonstrative Draco normally is, but Elijah curls his hand into Draco’s without hesitation and lets him direct their steps.

The first statue they come to is one of Draco’s favourites, and also one that he doesn’t like to dwell on often. It’s a sculpture in white marble, of a witch with her hair tumbling around her shoulders, half-kneeling on the ground, forever weeping for the loss of her own life. It reminds Draco of too many people he’s lost for him to be entirely comfortable around it, but there’s also something about the witch that calls to him.

Apparently Elijah feels the same way, because his expression as he studies the sculpture is solemn and respectful, as if he knows what this particular piece signifies. “Who is she?” he asks.

Draco isn’t really sure how to answer. She’s everyone; every witch – and wizard, by extension – fallen in the great battle between good and evil.

“She’s more a…representation,” Draco says. “She died for what she believed.”

Elijah nods, understanding. Draco had known that he would.

They move through the grand foyer into the first gallery, and Draco winces when he sees an elderly witch hurrying past, robes fluttering and pointed hat cocked at a jaunty angle. Elijah raises his eyebrows, and Draco shrugs. “There must be a fantasy convention in town,” he suggests. “I think I heard something about it the other day.”

Elijah doesn’t question him, but the corners of his lips turn up as he glances at Draco sidelong, amused. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” he says, and Draco does his best to look innocent.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies lightly. “Now come along, I still have something that I want you to see.”

Elijah goes along with him, still smiling to himself, and Draco takes a few precious seconds to worry about whether he’s doing the right thing by so openly flaunting the fact that he’s breaking the rules. But the weight of the pendant is reassuring against his chest, and even more so is the warmth of Elijah’s hand clasped in his. However this turns out, it will be worth it.

He’s even more sure when they reach the exhibit he’s been guiding them towards, and Elijah’s lips part in stunned awe. “Draco,” he whispers, without looking away from the pieces on display. “There are dragons.”

Draco’s aware that he’s quite possibly gloating, but at the moment he’s too proud to care. “Do you like them?” he asks, and Elijah nods in wordless amazement, looking up at the skylight above them, where miniature three-dimensional representations of every species known to wizards wheel and dive in intricate flight patterns of the artist’s and nature’s own creation.

“They’re incredible,” Elijah says softly, letting go of Draco’s hand and walking forward to the life-sized depiction of an Antipodean Opaleye staring balefully down at them from the rock upon which it’s perched. Its eyes glitter at Elijah’s approach, colours shimmering over its scaly surface, and Draco swallows a lump in his throat as he sees Elijah raise a hand, palm up, in respectful greeting.

If Draco knew of a real dragon being held in captivity nearby, they would be there by nightfall. The look on Elijah’s face as he reaches to almost-touch the dragon’s iridescent snout is almost too much for him to watch. He can’t imagine what Elijah would look like if Draco showed him a live Common Welsh Green.

The Opaleye snorts, and Elijah jumps back, eyes wide, at the puff of smoke that wisps out of the dragon’s large nostrils. Draco laughs before he can help it, and the look Elijah throws him is more accusatory pout than admonition.

“Careful,” Draco warns, still smiling. “Most of the pieces in this museum are designed to be lifelike.”

Elijah nods, already drifting on towards another sculpture, and Draco follows behind him at a relaxed pace, hands stuffed into his trouser pockets. So far, so good. With any luck, whomever is working security will recognize Draco and just assume that Elijah is an unregistered Wizarding relative.

That hope dies somewhere between the Chinese Fireball and the Peruvian Firetooth, when Draco catches movement out of the corner of his eye and sees Neville Longbottom heading towards them with a look of half-terrified determination.

Draco sighs. Neville’s not actually a bad sort. Draco didn’t like him much in school – he didn’t like a lot of people much in school – but now he thinks Neville’s really a decent enough fellow. Not Auror material, no, but handy to have around. It’s a pity he seems determined to take it upon himself to throw them out.

Draco heads him off on the opposite side of the Hungarian Horntail, a move which Neville seems just as happy to allow, because his goal is probably to keep Elijah as much in the dark about all of this as possible.

“He’s a Muggle,” Neville hisses worriedly as soon as Draco is within earshot. Draco’s mildly entertained by the fact that Neville is actually wringing his hands in distress. “Draco, you can’t bring in a Muggle. It’s against the rules.”

“Relax,” Draco assures him confidently, trusting that he still has the ability to walk over Neville like a rather cushy carpet. “I told him it was a Muggle technology museum, he has no idea. They can do this sort of thing now, you know, they just need machines to accomplish it.”

Neville doesn’t look in any way reassured. He’s also, unfortunately, not distracted by the exciting news about cutting-edge Muggle mimicry. “And what if he sees something he shouldn’t? What about the next time, when he decides to come back and you aren’t with him?”

“He won’t be able to find it,” Draco soothes, although privately he admits that he can’t honestly be sure of that. Elijah is both perceptive and tenacious, and Draco’s not sure that even a fleet of Dementors could keep him away from the dragons now that he’s seen them. Draco reluctantly has to confess that he hadn’t thought of that when he first concocted this plan.

“He can’t stay,” Neville insists, and Draco holds up his hands, admitting defeat.

“All right, we’ll go. Just let him finish looking at the dragons, and then we’ll be on our way.” Elijah might be difficult to persuade, but Draco is sure that he can convince him it’s time to leave without too much trouble. The important thing was that Elijah see the exhibit, and he has.

“And he has to have his memory modified,” Neville finishes, and Draco goes cold.

“Over my dead body.”

“He can’t be allowed to remember this,” Neville insists. “He’ll come back, he’ll see something that he shouldn’t, and then we might not be able to control it.”

“You’re not taking this away from him,” Draco snaps, furious at the very idea that Neville could so easily insist Elijah lose the memory that’s made his face light up with more innocent joy than Draco has ever seen.

Neville opens his mouth to keep arguing, and then he shuts it again. “He can’t,” Neville repeats, and then backs away a few steps and flees the room, undoubtedly in search of reinforcements. Draco sighs and swears under his breath. And they were so close, too.

When he sees who Neville has sent back to stop him, Draco has to stifle the urge to scream.

“Malfoy, Malfoy,” Harry says mock-sadly, shaking his head. “Breaking the rules to suit yourself again? You never change.”

It’s possibly the most ridiculous statement that Harry could have made, because if anyone doesn’t change, it’s the famous Boy Who Lived. Harry clings to the past, and his images of the past. If Draco ever saw him with facial hair, he believes he’d know the world was coming to an end. And that’s why, to Harry, Draco will always be an eleven-year-old with a superiority complex and a rather vicious competitive streak.

Dealing with Harry can be quite tiring, sometimes.

“It’s not hurting anyone,” Draco says calmly, crossing his arms to mirror Harry’s aggressive posture. “Just let him look around once, and we’ll go.”

“Not a chance,” Harry says flatly. It’s at this moment that Draco realizes they’ve attracted attention, and Elijah has drifted to stand by Draco’s side, clearly either not completely believing Draco about Harry not being an ex, or else simply sensing trouble and coming to Draco’s defense. Draco is grateful for the support, at the same time that he wishes Elijah wasn’t quite so aware.

Harry looks merely annoyed by the intrusion. “You’re Malfoy’s landlord, aren’t you?” he says, and somehow manages to look down his nose at Elijah even though the difference in their heights isn’t overly significant. “I heard you’re renting him a room.”

The suggestive double-meaning in that statement makes Draco grit his teeth, but Elijah’s hand brushes his arm, clearly urging him to stay calm. Elijah grins in a way which conveys nothing of a smile and more of baring teeth. “His boyfriend, actually. And who might you be, besides the man who made a scene in my shop the other day? I’m afraid Draco hasn’t mentioned you at all.”

Draco is impressed, and his lips try to twitch upwards in approval while he attempts to keep glaring sternly at Harry. Harry, for his part, looks taken aback by the directness of Elijah’s attack.

“A colleague,” Harry says stiffly, and Draco sends thanks to every known deity that Harry didn’t blow his invented cover story. Harry’s glare shifts to Draco, and Draco blinks mildly, waiting for the rejoinder. “Malfoy, may I speak with you in private?”

Draco bites his tongue to keep from making a smart remark, but at least the fact that Harry isn’t willing to discuss things in front of Elijah means that he might not force the issue on the memory charm. Draco can only hope, at any rate.

“Of course,” he answers generously, and Harry stalks off in the direction of the foyer, clearly expecting Draco to follow.

He sighs, and Elijah catches his eyes, looking surprisingly solemn. “If you’re starting a fight for my sake, don’t.”

“It’s not about you,” Draco assures him. “This has been almost fifteen years of enmity in the making. We’ll just go hash it out like adolescents, and then I’ll be back.”

He straightens his jacket and heads to the foyer, mentally preparing for battle. Draco won’t pretend Elijah doesn’t matter, but he certainly doesn’t have anything to do with _this_. This is between him and Harry.

Harry is pacing in front of the statue of the fallen witch, and Draco stuffs his hands back into his pockets and leans casually against the doorframe, making sure to keep Elijah in his line of sight. Harry is normally too honest for his own good, but that doesn’t mean Draco trusts him not to try anything.

“You’re such an arrogant pillock,” is Harry’s eloquent opening rally.

It’s moments like these when Draco remembers clearly why Harry Potter annoys him so much.

“This isn’t about you and me, Potter, so stop getting yourself into such a snit over it,” Draco snaps in irritation. “He likes dragons, I wanted him to see them as they really are, not those piss-poor Muggle mud-paintings. It’s not as horrific a crime as you’re trying to make it out to be.”

“I’ll have to erase his memory, you know,” Harry comments, and seems utterly unable to hide the smirk of satisfaction at being able to foil Draco over something so petty.

The hot anger and self-assurance has always been Harry’s trademark, but Draco’s is intimidation, and he knows how to use it. “You touch him,” he tells Harry with perfect calmness, “and I’ll snap your wand in two.”

Harry’s eyes narrow, and his wand is suddenly in his hand, half-cocked in Elijah’s direction. Draco is only a half-second behind him, and he’s got his wand leveled at Harry even before the muttered “Obliviate.”

“Protego,” Draco counters coldly. “Don’t make this into a duel just to satisfy your own ego, Potter. You won’t win.”

“He doesn’t belong here,” Harry says, and Draco knows that was loud enough for Elijah to hear.

“Let it go,” Draco warns, the temperature of his voice dropped to ice. “Or I swear he’ll see more than either of us want him to.”

Harry’s eyes flicker briefly past Draco, and out of the corner of his eye Draco suddenly sees Neville, hesitating but clearly still determined, inching towards Elijah with his wand clutched at his side.

“Don’t you do it,” Draco breathes, gaze still locked on Harry. “Call him off, or I bring this entire building down around your ears.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Harry sneers, but Draco would and he means it, and Harry seems to recognize that a beat later, because the sneer fades from his lips.

“Fine,” he snaps, and the jerk of his head halts Neville in his tracks, who then shamefacedly tries to slip his wand up his sleeve without Elijah noticing.

“We’re leaving,” Draco says to Elijah, turning away from Harry with his fingers still tense, ready to draw his wand again at the first sign of provocation. Elijah nods, still clearly not understanding what’s going on but willing to trust Draco’s decision, and Draco thinks guiltily that he probably doesn’t deserve even that much, after the fiasco this has turned into.

“Your friends don’t like seem to me very much,” Elijah comments neutrally, when they’ve passed through the wall again and are far enough away that Draco feels like he can breathe again.

Draco shakes his head. “Those aren’t my friends.” He pauses, seeing something more in Elijah’s face that he isn’t saying, and is just short-tempered enough to be frustrated with him for hiding it. “What?” he demands, and Elijah looks at him, strangely expressionless.

“I think you’re protecting me.” There’s a beat, during which Elijah waits and Draco stares and neither of them speak. Then, “I just don’t know why you think you have to.”

Draco doesn’t have any response to that. “I protect what I care about,” he says finally, the distillation of an explanation of Slytherin loyalty and close-knit pureblood upbringing. “And right now that’s you.”

Elijah doesn’t say anything. Draco is slightly ashamed to discover, two blocks of silence later, that he’s actually relieved.

 

* * * * *

 

“You said you had a lead,” Harry says without preamble. “Is this a genuine piece of information, or just a way of stalling for long enough to get your Slytherin friends safely out of harm’s way?”

His manner is decidedly cool, but at least he’s shown up to the meeting Draco has arranged. They’re at a café by the riverside, which is neutral territory as far as Draco is concerned, and he prefers it that way. One thing that Harry does exceptionally well is to hold grudges, and keeping him and Elijah apart seems to be a prudent move.

Draco takes a sip of his spice chai latte, and does his best to swallow his irritation with Harry’s attitude at the same time. “Even you should know better than to question my loyalties by now, Potter. Contrary to popular opinion, you didn’t bring the Dark Lord and his evil minions down all by yourself. Do try not to believe your press, I think you’ll find it misleading.”

Harry frowns at him, apparently allowing the insult to slide in favour of pursuing Draco’s first statement. “Are you going to tell me you don’t still have ties to members of their group? Half of them are from our year or close, and they all worshipped you. I can’t believe you’d just abandon them now, because of what they choose to believe.” He toasts Draco ironically with his cappuccino. “Loyalty cuts both ways.”

Draco hedges. He hasn’t mentioned Pansy to Harry directly, only in his reports to the Ministry where he listed her as a ‘probable Slytherin source’. He has to watch what he says, because Harry is cunning.

“I don’t agree with them, but I do sympathize with them. Most of them came from families who were strong supporters of the Dark Lord. Blind loyalty is not only a strength to them, it’s a way of life. Who do they turn to follow, after you’ve killed him?”

Harry favours him with a skeptical look. “Believing that Salazar Slytherin is going to resurrect from the dead and lead them all to glory isn’t just blind loyalty, it’s blind stupidity.”

Draco shrugs. “Like I said, I don’t agree. But I don’t have to.”

Harry seems to accept this, and Draco realizes belatedly that he shouldn’t really be surprised. If Granger or Ron Weasley ever did something as stupid as join a cult, Harry would probably berate them soundly and then insist on supporting them anyway, out of noble friendship.

“So what’s the lead?” he asks, and Draco mentally pulls out the careful speech he’s been planning for this meeting today.

“I think we should stop looking for the node itself, and start looking for a focus object,” he says cautiously. “I’m not having any luck, and let’s face it; no matter how you feel about me, I _am_ the best living wizard when it comes to experimental magic.”

Harry looks like he wants to take exception to that point, but he doesn’t, so Draco forges ahead. “MacMillan and Creevey aren’t having any luck with finding a responsible wizard, and since we’ve ruled it most likely a cult venture, I think it’s unlikely they will. If it _is_ the Children of Slytherin, then they have considerable numbers, and with this many people involved, they have to set the node up somewhere stable. If we figure out what the focus object is, it should be fairly easy for me to take the spell apart.”

Draco finishes and takes a quick breath of relief for having gotten it all out so neatly. Harry chews on his lip and watches Draco suspiciously for long enough that Draco starts to find the gradual blood-flush to his lips considerably distracting.

“You’ve been tipped,” Harry says finally, and Draco stammers surprised and mangled protests of innocence until Harry shakes his head and waves them off. “I know you’re not going to tell me who, I’m just glad you know someone. Did they give you any other information that might help us?”

Draco slumps, half-relieved and half-inexplicably annoyed. “No. Just that the node – they call it the repository – _is_ somehow London, which is why I can’t get a fix on it, and why the entire city is stuck in this blasted magical rainstorm.” He grimaces at the sheet of rain pouring off of the awning their table is situated beneath, and takes a drink of his coffee, just hot enough to burn his tongue. “And I was told flat out that they’re onto me, they know I’m here for the Ministry, which means the cult itself is probably gone.”

“Maybe not,” Harry says doubtfully. “They set the node…repository…up for a reason, maybe that reason is still valid. After all, they haven’t taken it down yet.”

“Or maybe they’ve accomplished what they needed it for, and left it for us to worry over while they make a clean getaway.” It’s too much to ask for Harry to think like a Slytherin, but Draco always hopes that one day he’ll at least learn to deduce their basic motives. “Why take it down, when they can get us to do it for them, and create minor chaos in a major city at the same time? They know how the Ministry prioritizes, Potter. No.” He shakes his head. “They’re long gone.”

Harry slowly rolls the paper coffee cup in his hands as he thinks. “Cults are strongly symbolic, this one ridiculously so,” he says finally. “If we’re looking for a focus object… What’s in London that would have any significance to Salazar Slytherin?”

Draco lets out his breath in a frustrated huff. “Nothing. I’ve checked. Every artifact, every book, every scrap of parchment he’s ever written on, all accounted for. There could be objects that the Ministry either doesn’t know about or has classified, but after the Purge, I doubt it. This is a young cult; even if the members do have pureblood families, they won’t have access to anything that valuable.”

Harry hums, and they sit in silence for a while. Draco catches himself studying the way Harry’s long fingers wrap around his coffee cup, and looks away into the rain, cheeks heating faintly.

“What did you say you saw manifest when you tried the tracking spell?” Harry asks suddenly, and Draco blinks.

“The Slytherin house symbol, the serpent.” Harry’s eyes are on his, and Draco catches on to his meaning a half-second later. “Not Slytherin. Snakes.”

Harry nods. Draco thinks frantically, wondering what there is here that’s connected to snakes, serpents… “The reptile house at the London Zoo.”

Harry’s out of his seat in the next heartbeat, finishing his coffee decisively in three long swallows while Draco does his best not to watch his throat work too obviously. “Sit tight,” he orders, tossing his cup into the nearby bin. “I’ll check it out.”

For a moment, Draco’s too surprised to be affronted. But only for a moment. “What do you mean, _you’ll_ check it out? Why not me?”

Harry just grins infuriatingly. “Because I’m a parselmouth, and an Auror, and _you’re_ the self-proclaimed experimental magic whiz. If it’s a trap, or if the node is warded, we need to keep you alive.”

Draco grumbles, but he can’t really argue with even a backhanded compliment, and Harry isn’t listening anyway.

“You call Creevey and MacMillan, and set up the spells you think you’ll need to take this thing down,” Harry says decisively. “I’ll give you a call as soon as I find what we’re looking for.”

 

* * * * *

 

There’s a young man loitering outside the record store when Draco gets back from the café, and Draco frowns for a second before remembering that it’s Elijah’s day to go to Camden and the shop is closed.

“Can I help you with something?” he asks, and the young man turns around, wide-eyed. He’s tall, gangly, wrapped up from head to toe in a bulky jumper, frayed jeans, and a scarf, and is rather startlingly attractive. Draco walks closer and blinks. On second thought, make that gorgeous.

“Hey, are you Draco?” the man asks, and smiles a shy, lopsided greeting. “I’m Orlando, I come to help Elijah take the stuff up to Camden sometimes. Is he around, do you know? I knocked, but there was no answer.”

Draco frowns. Elijah hadn’t mentioned any Orlando…certainly not any unbelievably good-looking young men named Orlando with sweet smiles and mops of disarrayed curls on their heads. “He might be upstairs,” Draco answers, getting out his keys. “Why don’t I go in and let him know that you’re here?”

Orlando looks ready to protest, but luckily they’re both saved from any awkwardness by Elijah’s timely appearance at the door, head poking out with a grin. “Orlando, sorry about that, I didn’t hear you. Come on in, I’ll just be a minute.” He gestures for Orlando to precede him, and then glances obliquely at Draco. “You’re back early, I thought you’d be longer. How was coffee?”

“Fine,” Draco answers briefly. “Who’s he?”

“Orlando Bloom, he helps me out when I’ve got more boxes than I can handle on my own.” Elijah has that somewhat shifty look that he gets sometimes when he’s avoiding telling Draco something, and Draco can guess what it is.

“Friend?” he asks, eyebrows perfectly arched in enquiry.

“Ex,” Elijah counters with a smile, but his lips soothe away whatever retort Draco had been planning to come up with, and the kiss itself isn’t nearly as calming as Elijah’s presence.

“Jealous?” Elijah teases, and there’s laughter in his eyes, enough to finish easing Draco’s half-formed fit of temper.

“Not yet,” Draco murmurs, eyes on Elijah as he pulls away with the casual grace of a Slytherin who knows he’s being watched and is performing to his utmost ability. “Why didn’t you tell me you needed help? I would have volunteered.”

“I know, but you’re working today.” Elijah shrugs it off, and Draco realizes with a sharp pang that if all goes well, the node will go down today. He might never see Elijah again.

“Stay,” Draco urges suddenly, voice rough as he pulls Elijah into his arms, half-in and half-out of the doorway. “Just for a little while.”

“I can’t,” Elijah murmurs, but he doesn’t pull away. “I have to be there to set up in half-an-hour.”

“Ditch,” Draco suggests with as much lightness as he can muster, and then can’t help adding, “Let cheekbone boy do it.” Elijah laughs softly, but now he does pull away, and Draco has to let him go.

“Don’t start getting jealous on me now,” he warns, and Draco mutters something about pretty-boy pansies and their airs, which earns him a reproving swat before Elijah crosses to pick up the boxes he’s laid out.

“I’m heading out,” Elijah proclaims, with another brief kiss that Draco can’t help but be mildly pleased Orlando witnesses. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Tonight,” Draco echoes dully. He watches Elijah leave with Orlando in tow, messenger bag hooked across his torso and box full of discs in his arms, and then shakes his head and heads upstairs to start setting out what he thinks he’ll need.

Two hours later, a piece of blank parchment drifts in through Draco’s makeshift delivery window. A muttered _Aparecium_ , and words crawl like spiders across the page in Harry’s sketched handwriting. _‘I’ve uncovered the serpent’s nest. Send for MacMillan and Creevey. We’re taking this thing down.’_

 

* * * * *

 

There are Stealth Sensoring spells on the door, installed as soon as Draco took up residence, so as soon as he feels the tingle of the wards, he knows something is off. His wand is in his hand without a second thought, but even as he starts to whisper a revealing spell, the air in front of him shimmers. Draco watches with narrowed eyes as MacMillan and Creevey appear, looking slightly bedraggled and just a bit lost.

“Ah, Malfoy,” Creevey says cheerfully. “We tried to Floo, but I guess this place isn’t connected to the Network.”

Draco resists the urge to roll his eyes. “It’s a two-storey shop in downtown London. There _is_ no fireplace.”

MacMillan gives him an odd look, shaking out the shimmering fabric of an invisibility cloak. “Don’t you find that a bit lonely?”

Draco is surprised enough to blink, but he covers it quickly. “I find it quite peaceful, actually,” he says with a sniff. “I get more work done without wizards popping up in my rooms all the time.”

“Yes, well, sorry about that.” MacMillan looks anything but, but Draco doesn’t force the issue. “Harry said you were almost ready to take down the node?”

“He’s on his way,” Draco affirms, glancing around the room to make sure there isn’t anything he’s forgotten. “We should be ready to go as soon as he brings us the focus object.”

“Do we need to go somewhere else to do this?” Creevey asks curiously, watching Draco set the containment wards with sea salt and fill the silver chalice with a calmly-spoken _Aguamenti._

“No,” Draco answers shortly, and a wave of his wand sets the candles alight. “We can do it right here.”

MacMillan nods, engrossed in shaking the water off of the tip of his wand. “Bloody rain, gets into everything. I don’t know how _you_ can stand it.” The last is directed with a baleful look in Draco’s direction, which he ignores.

“ _Impervius_ charm,” Draco explains with an insouciant wave.

MacMillan stares harder, ever vigilant and focused on catching lawbreakers. “Don’t the Muggles notice?”

Draco only smirks, as the rain droplets from MacMillan’s jacket spatter and fall without touching him. “Did you?”

“Nice,” Creevey says, examining Draco’s spell-work, and he nods, accepting the praise gracefully.

MacMillan looks up thoughtfully. “Would a drought charm work, do you think?”

Draco doesn’t even bother to justify that with a response.

“Harry,” Creevey says suddenly, and just like that he’s there, with his arms full of hissing, slithering serpent.

“This is the one,” Harry says confidently, setting the snake – a boa, by the size of it – down onto Draco’s worktable while Creevey and MacMillan edge cautiously and subtly away. “It’s actually a brass plaque, I just Transfigured it for easier transport.”

“Well, Transfigure it back,” Draco orders testily, itching to have this part out of the way. Only Harry would consider a boa constrictor easier to transport – around his _neck_ – than a plaque.

“Calm down, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Harry says with a superior smirk, and Draco reminds himself sternly that they’re all on the same side here. A few muttered words later they have an ordinary-looking brass plaque, after a particularly smooth bit of Transfiguration that Draco is impressed with in spite of himself.

He reaches out to touch the plaque, eager to figure out exactly what it is that they’re dealing with, and freezes with his hand a few inches above the metal surface.

“What is it?” Harry asks sharply.

“Not sure, yet. But she said they knew I was here, so they might have…”

“Warded it?” Harry finishes when Draco trails off distantly, wand moving and chanting quietly under his breath. Draco nods, and a second later he shudders, warned by the unmistakable creeping coldness of a personal-directed hex.

“You said she,” Harry says suddenly. Who’s your source?”

“Pansy,” Draco answers absently, wand whipping through his own signature, and Harry hisses.

“You don’t trust her,” he translates.

“I don’t trust anyone,” Draco answers coolly. “But I especially don’t trust her.”

“I don’t blame you,” Harry says, and pauses while Draco undoes the personalized hex keyed to him. “You were right, by the way. There’s no sign of any of them, and no magical residue. I think the Children of Slytherin have moved on.”

Draco grunts, unable to spare more attention for Harry than that. A tap of his wand into the intricate web of the wards surrounding the node’s focus object, and he has it. “Evil dreams and night terrors,” Draco mutters as he disarms the spells. “Love you too, Pansy.”

“I don’t think she’s quite gotten over you,” Harry comments blandly, and Draco shoots him a sarcastic look to say, _you think?_

“So what do we do now?” MacMillan chimes in, and Draco takes a deep breath, already sweating from the exertion of tackling such strong and well-made spells. One thing you won’t catch Slytherins doing is slacking off where it counts.

“Wands out,” Draco orders curtly, struggling with the web as he goes deeper and deeper into the node. It’s pure magic, focused and distilled, swirling all around him. “I need you to ground the magic, send it…the chalice should help, silver and water…”

It’s like speaking through molasses. Draco has a sense of someone else talking, but he’s in too far now, and the magic rises around him like a cresting wave. “Harry,” he says clearly, and has a vague idea of affirmation before he takes hold of the whirlpool that’s sucking in the magic, and channels it back out of the artificial vortex to where it belongs.

He follows the last of it, high on an overload of magic and mentally spinning inside the whirlpool until he’s dizzy, fingertips crackling as he erupts out of the current and back into the room. There’s a sharp metallic clang, and when Draco looks down, disoriented, he sees that the plaque has cracked cleanly in two.

“Draco?” Harry asks warily from somewhere behind him. Draco blinks, trying to make his body obey him, and realizes with faint surprise that he’s still tingling, like a magical circuit with no way to discharge the energy.

“I’m fine,” he says distantly, voice thick. “I just need…”

He manages to focus on the chalice, and holds his wand out with a trembling hand until the tip touches the water.

The magic floods out of him like it’s being sucked down a drain, and Draco has a split-second to be ridiculously pleased with himself before his legs are suddenly giving out, and everything starts to go fuzzy.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s aware of Harry catching him before he hits the ground, and as Harry scoops him up and cradles Draco against his chest, he thinks vaguely, _this is all it takes?_

Then things go rather black.

 

* * * * *

 

Draco opens his eyes to a pounding headache, and the disgruntled realization that someone is waving smelling salts under his nose.

“Stop that,” he snaps groggily, and latches onto Harry after some disoriented fumbling to sit up on the couch where they’ve dumped him. “What happened?”

“You passed out,” Creevey pipes up helpfully, and Draco has enough presence of mind to glare with enough emotion behind it to shut him up.

“You discharged the node,” Harry takes over smoothly. His lips twitch. “And then you passed out.”

Draco grumbles something uncomplimentary and clutches his head. “Argh.”

“Are you all right to Apparate?” MacMillan asks worriedly. “We can get you to St. Mungo’s, but you said this place doesn’t have a Floo…”

“I’ll be fine,” Draco cuts him off, waving in what he supposes is a vaguely reassuring manner. “Just an overload headache.”

“Shall we get back to the Ministry, then?” MacMillan suggests, and Draco blinks away the last cobwebs from his exhausted brain.

“I’ll catch up with you,” he says.

MacMillan gives him a puzzled look, and then his expression clears. “Oh, you have to settle with your Muggle landlord?”

Draco smiles faintly. “Something like that.”

Harry snorts. Draco would glare at him if he could find the energy, but suddenly Harry is very close, and Draco’s caught off-guard enough that he doesn’t even react. Before he even understands what’s happening, Harry leans in and gives him a brief kiss on the cheek, just the barest slow brush of lips against Draco’s skin before he leans back, wearing his customary smirk. “See you around, Malfoy.”

“Get fucked, Potter,” Draco retorts, but he’s mildly horrified to find that he’s smiling. The three of them Disapparate at nearly the same moment, and Draco sinks back onto the couch, to hold his skull together and wince.

He could go after Elijah. He probably should. Camden can’t be all that big, someone must know where he is. Draco could track him down, see him, tell him…what, exactly? That he’s leaving?

It’s a ridiculous idea, even more ridiculous for the fact that he’d have to go to such lengths to do it. With another sigh, Draco sits up and takes a good look around the room. He can’t banish the evidence the way he usually does, it would take more out of him at the moment than he has to give. He spares a grumpy thought for his team members, and Harry in particular, for leaving him without any help, and then sets to cleaning.

He hears Elijah downstairs just as he’s sweeping up the sea salt with a wire brush, and then there’s the thumping sound of two sets of feet bounding up the stairs. “Draco?” Elijah calls.

Draco clears his throat. “In here,” he calls back, and a moment later Dom pokes his head around the doorframe and grins.

“Found something of yours down at Camden,” Dom says cheekily, dragging Elijah in with him, and it’s only through two-and-a-half decades of necessary Malfoy survival instincts that Draco keeps from blushing. Elijah apparently has the same immunity, perhaps born of long exposure to Dom’s smart mouth, and levels a glare at his oblivious friend.

“Can’t have him wandering around and going home with just anyone, you know,” Dom continues, blithely ignoring Elijah. “Well, I should probably get going. You’d better make some tea for this one, he was coughing earlier. Wouldn’t want him to fall ill,” he points out, with another cheeky wink for Draco. “That could put a real damper on your weekend plans.”

“ _Dominic,_ ” Elijah says firmly, and Dom raises both hands in surrender, backing out through the doorway.

“Dom,” Draco says, and then stops because he isn’t sure exactly what he wants to say, but he’s fairly certain that he can’t say it all in front of Elijah.

“Thank you,” he says simply, and leaves it at that.

“You’re welcome,” Dom answers, and the twinkle in his eyes says that he’s gotten the real message Draco had wanted to send.

There’s a brief awkward pause, during which he and Elijah both look at each other, and neither of them say anything.

“Are you working?” Elijah finally asks.

Draco shakes his head. “Not anymore.”

Elijah’s look is thoughtful, and far too understanding. “I thought you might not be. The rain’s stopped.” He shrugs, suddenly looking far more vulnerable than Draco has ever seen him. “I didn’t know if you had noticed.”

“I did,” Draco says, and Elijah smiles faintly at him, clearly thinking the same things that Draco isn’t ready to say. “So, I suppose I’d better make you that tea, then,” he decides, and Elijah looks through long lashes at him, veiled and considering.

“Will you be around to drink it with me?” he asks, and Draco isn’t immediately ready with an answer.

“Of course,” he says finally. “Can’t have you coming down with anything, not…” _Not now,_ he thinks, but he doesn’t need to say that. Not when their time together is so short, and about to come to an end.

“I’m not leaving just yet,” he promises, and Elijah nods, hand curling into Draco’s.

The others have already gone. Draco figures he’ll go soon, too.

Maybe.


End file.
